5)A CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1 924 087 055 301 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924087055301 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN LINGARD 1771—1851 OTHER WORKS BY MARTIN HAILE LIFE and LETTERS of QUEEN MARY of MODENA Dent, 12s. 6d. net. JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD, the OLD CHEVALIER Dent, 16«. net. LIFE of REGINALD POLE Pitman, Second Edition, 7s. 6d. '.^.€iU>^Jl^^'^^,'^^C0'n£t4 .^E?^ J^^^ ST. MARY OF THE LAKE SEMINARY LIBRARY NiLES LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN LINGARD 1771—1851 BY MARTIN HAILE & EDWIN BONNEY B. HERDER 17 SOUTH BROADWAY ST. LOUIS, MO. HERBERT & DANIEL 21 MADDOX STREET LONDON, W. Nihil Obstat H. S. BOWDEN Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur EDM: CAN: SURMONT Vic. Gen. Westmonasterii. die s Oct. 191 i. PREFACE FOR sixty years the Lingard papers have rested undisturbed in various places, notably the library of Ushaw College, Durham. This long repose has not been without its advantages : if, on the one hand, it has tended — save among students and lovers of veracious history — to throw a veil of unmerited neglect on the man and his works, it has sufficed to set them back into the realm of history, where only they can be rightly judged and appraised, and ranked in their true place. Another advantage gained by the passage of more than half a century, has been the extinction of old controversies, the dying out, or the solution, of the burning problems, of which the heats of the momentary conflicts often obscured the true sense and bearing : not to mention the important fact of the passing out of existence of all the strenuous actors in the scenes, in which Lingard bore his dignified and worthy part. The facts, in their simplicity and entirety, may be set forth without wounding susceptibilities, or arousing fruitless discussions. A sense of gratitude to the great historian first turned Martin Haile's thoughts to an attempt to write vi LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD his life. When collecting materials for biographies of the Stuart and Tudor periods, there was but one historian who was uniformly to be trusted ; while all other English writers on those subjects, his contem- poraries and predecessors, generally failed to stand the most elementary tests of truth and accuracy. The sense of admiration grew, as the testimony of original documents — those which have come to light since Lingard wrote, as well as those of which he knew — never failed to corroborate not only his facts, but, rarer honour still, his conclusions and almost intuitive sur- mises. Admiration could not but warm into respect and affection, as the first inquiries into his life and character revealed their singular beauty and intrinsic worth. At the same time, the post of Librarian of Ushaw College, and the custody and arrangement of Lingard's letters and papers there preserved, had convinced the Rev. Edwin Bonney of the desirability, not to say the inperative duty of writing the life of a man, whose memory was so closely bound up with the college which had been the object of his lifelong affection. A collaboration ensued, which has placed that rich store of documents at the service of this book. Grateful thanks for much valuable help are due to Mr. J. A. Herbert, of the MSS. room, British Museum, to the officials of the Institut de France, Paris, to Mr. Arthur Duke Coleridge, k.c, clerk of the Lincoln Assize, and to Mr. Hugo Young, k.c. At Claxby, PREFACE vii the cradle of Lingard's family, the rector, the Rev. W. Andrews, and at Lincoln, Monsignor Croft were kindly helpful : while at Winchester, Lingard's birth- place. Canon Gunning, of St. Peter's Church, and Mr. F. J. Baigent furnished the data and traditions in their possession. At Rome, Monsignor Stanley, Bishop of Emmaus, obtained valuable information on the question of Lin- gard's cardinalate ; Monsignor Bernard Ward kindly communicated transcripts from the archives of the English vicariates, and the Rev. R. O. Bilsborrow gave interesting details of Lingard's life at Hornby. The Bishops of Northampton and Clifton, Dr. Edwin Burton, and Father Pollen, s.j., the archives at Stony- hurst, Oscott and Old Hall have all supplied material assistance by the loan of manuscripts and transcripts, while the vast store of Mr. Joseph Gillow's knowledge and information was ever to be counted on. CONTENTS CHAPTER I " Lingard's Place " ■- The Penal Laws : Rennell, a yeoman recusant : Jacobitism in Lincolnshire : A contested election : Imprisonment of Rennell : John Lingard and Elizabeth Rennell : Marriage : Removal to Winchester : Birth of their son : His character and love of his- tory : Catholic Relief Bill of 1778 : Mrs. Fenwick, of Hornby Hall : The Gordon riots : Milner and Lingard .... Fa^e 1 CHAPTER II Departure for Douay : A iurse at the English College : " Catholic Eng- land beyond the Seas " : President Gibson : Patriotic recusants : Destined for the priesthood : The missionary oath : Brilliant studies : ^ A minor professor : The French Revolution : Escape from Douay : Tutor to Lord Stourton's son : End of Douay College . Pa^e 18 CHAPTER III The "Catholic Committee": The struggle for emancipation : Charles Butler: Bitter controversy : Bishop James Talbot : The "Protesta- tion": The "Deposing Povirer": Dr. Horsley, Bishop of St. David's : Relief Act of 1791 : Milner and Charles Butler : Lingard in London : Friendship with Charles Butler : The elder Lingard : French imigris at Winchester : A new order of things . . Page 38 CHAPTER IV \ Fugitives from Doullens : Arrival at Tudhoe : Lingard resigns tutor- f ship : Arrives at Tudhoe in 1 794 : Pontop and Crook Hall : Presi- dent Eyre : Lingard acting vice-president : Ex-president Daniel : Winter evenings at Crook Hall : Historical studies : Success as teacher: Milner's History of Winchester: Lingard's Journal, 1800. Page 60 CHAPTER V The Act of Union : William Pitt and Catholic emancipation : The Veto question : The Peace of Amiens : Milner made Bishop of Castabala in partibus and vicar-apostolic of the Midland District : Lingard at his consecration : Death of Lingard's father : Foundation of X LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Ushaw College: Collecting building funds: Researches for first historical work, The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church: Pub- lished in 1806: Beauty of style and language: "Drinking at the Fountain Head " : A great linguist : A courteous adversary : Modesty and good temper : Prudent reserve : His primary object : Misconceptions : His motives approved by Popes Pius VII and Leo XII : Dissatisfaction of Bishop Milner : His violent attack : Lingard's fame established : Adverse reviewers : Dr. Allen in the Edinburgh Review ......■• Page 79 CHAPTER VI Ceaseless activity: Cisalpinism and Gallicanism : "A very critical period " : The Durham controversy : Barrington Shute, Bishop of Durham, and Lingard : Henry Phillpotts : Polemical writings : Stonyhurst founded : Works at Ushaw : The college opened July, 1808 ; Outbreak of typhus fever : Five victims : Milner's attacks : Lingard thinks of abandoning projected History of England : Charles Butler's wise and friendly letter : A tour in Scotland : Dr. Douglass invites Lingard to return to London District : Pro- posed presidency of St. Edmund's College declined : Interesting letter to Bishop Poynter : Removal to Hornby, 3rd September, 181 1 ; Mrs. Fenwick's legacy : The chapel and presbytery : Friends and neighbours : Veto agitation : An able and redoubtable champion : The "Ministry of all the Talents": Duke of Portland's "No Popery Cabinet " : Charles James Fox : Death of Spencer Perceval : George Canning and Lord Castlereagh : Grattan's campaign : Lord Holland's tribute to Lingard : Thanks of the Catholic Committee : Milner's Brief Memorial: "A Gross Calumny," censured by the Committee Page 100 CHAPTER VII The Orthodox Journal : Dr. Milner's organ : Vetoists and non-vetoists : The Quarantotti dispute : Lingard and Dr. Kipling, Dean of Peter- borough : Sir Henry Parnell's motion carried in House of Com- mons, May, 1816, lost in the Lords : Sir J. Cox Hippesley's Report : Lingard's reply : Bishop Poynter, vicar-apostolic of the London Dis- trict : Correspondence with Lingard : Close friendship with Lord Stourton : Journey to Rome with Lord and Lady Stourton in 1817 : Lingard's travelling journal : The Vatican MSB : Cool reception by Cardinal Litta : Warning letter from England : Kindness of Cardinal Consalvi : The English College in Rome : Lingard obtains it for the secular clergy : Robert Gradwell made rector : Second interview with Cardinal Litta : The change of Jansenism : Return to Hornby : Declines a bishopric Page 125 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER VIII Lord Holland, Henry Brougham, Dr. Allen : Transcripts from Rome, Milan, Paris : Joseph Mawman, publisher : MS. submitted to Lord Holland : First three volumes of History of England: Other writ- ings : The Wigan controversy : Correspondence with Robert Grad- well : Troubles at the English College in Rome : Gradwell's success : Success of Historv : Dr. Milner's attack in the Orthodox Journal: Invitation to the Irish bishops to condemn the work : Archbishop Curtis's reply : The question of emancipation : Petitions and counter petitions to Parliament : Lord Liverpool and Lord Grey : Dr. Milner and the Jesuits : Petitions and counter petitions to Rome: The "smuggled brief": Lingard's opinion: Supported by the English ministry: Pope Pius VII "quod scripsi, scripsi" ■ Lingard's share in negotiations : Acquaintance with Southey : Friendship with Dr. Blomfield Page 157 CHAPTER IX Propaganda and the Orthodox Journal: Success of fourth volume of History of England: Sir James Mackintosh : Death of George III : Catholic address to George IV : Tugging at the bonds : William Plunket's amendment : Approved by Lingard : Violence of Dr. Milner : His Theological Judgment : Death of Bishop Gibson : Lingard proposed as coadjutor-bishop to Dr. Smith : Memorial to Rome by Dr. Milner against the appointment : Lingard's nolo episcopari: Honoured by Pius VII: The triple academic laurel: Queen Elizabeth and her times : New chapel at Hornby : Failure of the Lancaster Bank : Lingard's losses : " ()«a«' without a shilling " : The "Vicar of Hornby": Friendly correspondence with Stony- hurst : Cardinal Allen's Admonition : New volume denounced to Propaganda by Dr. Milner: A "Jaunt to Paris": Supplementum ad Breviarum : Death of Pius VII and Cardinal Consalvi : Lin- gard's tribute : Death of Mrs. Lingard : The Royal Society of Literature Page 179 CHAPTER X Southey's Church : Blomfield made Bishop of Chester : Lingard draws up petition to House of Lords, 1825 : Sir Francis Burnett's Bill : Public feeling in favour of Emancipation : Sydney Smith's " excel- lent speech " : Lingard and Hume : Dr. Allen's attack : Charles Butler's Book of the Catholic Church : Journey to Rome with Mr. Mawman : Pope Leo XII tries to induce Lingard to stay in Rome : Gives him a gold medal : Nicholas Wiseman : Return to Hornby : A common-place book : Southey's Vindicice : The Edinburgh Review and Lingard's account of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day : Lingard's Vindication : His History translated into French xii LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD and Italian : A pirated edition by Galignani of Paris : The car- dinalate : Lingard or La Mennais : Cardinal Wiseman's account : Despatches of the French Embassy lately made public : Death of Leo XII : A rhapsody Pc^g^ 204 CHAPTER XI George Canning pledged to Catholic Emancipation : Lingard's advice : Death of Canning : The Duke of Wellington : Death of Joseph Mawman : O'Connell, the " liberator " • Emancipation granted 13th April, 1829 : Charles Butler : Death of Bishop Poynter : Robert Gradwell made Bishop : Dr. Wiseman, rector of English College at Rome : Padre Ventura's attack on Lingard's History : Leo XII's defence of the work : James Raine's Si. Cuthbert : Lingard's reply : Appearance of the last volume of History, December, 1830 : Mr. Shepherd and Miss Hannah Joyce: Pollock, Scarlett, and Brougham at Hornby: Lingard's conversational charm : A Spanish refugee : Death of Charles Butler : An intimate friendship of forty years : The Rising generation of writers : Report of Lingard's death : Anthony Parizzi's attack : Portrait by Lonsdale, presented to Lingard by the Bar of the Northern Circuit : Conversion of Professor Phillips, of Berlin : Pope Gregory XVI : A false alarm : " Tatham versus Wright " : Southey and Wordsworth : Dr. DoUinger Page 230 CHAPTER XII Failure of Baldwin and Cradock: Lingard's loss: Interest in Ushaw: Good Latin writers : John Walker, of Scarborough : Election of bishops : Lingard's opinion : Old clerical party : Letter to the Lord Chan- cellor: Manual of Prayers: A new version of the Four Gospels: "The happiest effort of his genius": A simpler Catechism: His banking-account : Privy Purse grant : Lord and Lady Holland : The French Academy : Lingard's essay — " When did Anne Boleyn leave France?" : Tierney's Dodd : A difficult task : Mr. Bagshawe of the Dublin Review Page 257 CHAPTER XIII The Oxford movement: " Widow Woolfrey " : Dr. Hook's sermon: John Walker's reply : Anglican Orders : Lingard's opinion : " The Ancient Church and the Liturgy of the Church of England": "Catechetical Instructions": " Vive le Penny Post!": Dr. Wise- man made Bishop of Melipotamus : Lingard's pun : Pope Gregory XVI : Eight vicariates established : Lingard's influence in eccle- siastical affairs : The new bishops : Affairs of Ushaw College : Pro- posed deed of trust : Bequests to the College : Clerical students : Invitation to Oscott : Letters to Miss Joyce : Anecdotes : Love of animals : Father Mathew : Letters to children : Architectural notions : New chapel at Ushaw : Rood-screens : Pugin's designs . Page 278 CONTENTS ' xiii CHAPTER XIV The old clerics and the new : Ex-Tractarians : Apostolic succession : Dr. Pusey : Wiseman and the Oxfordians : Non omnia expediunt : Innovations: "New-fangled devotions": The Roman collar: Father Spencer : Second edition of History of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The British Church: The yElfric Society: The Saxon Homilies : Henry Soames : Benjamin Thorpe : Dr. Lappenberg : Lingard's charity : Lord Brougham's criticism : A playful fancy : The honey-pot bishop : Quoted against Wiseman : ' ' Song and Ser- vice in the Church " : Asked to translate Catechism of the Council of Trent : Invitation to Rome : Irish affairs : Daniel O'Connell : Dis- covery of martyrs' heads at Hazlewood: " Lockwood and Catterick": Letter to Miss Joyce : A memorable year, 1845 : W. G. Ward : Faber, Dalgairus, Newman : Gains and Losses : Status Missionis : Newman and Ambrose St. John at Ushaw .... Page 304 CHAPTER XV Charles Dolman : Copyright ol History of England : Miss Agnes Strick- land : W. B. TurnbuU : Serjeant Talfourd's tribute to Lingard : An accident : Carlyle's Cromwell : Massacre at Drogheda and Wex- ford : Carlyle and Lamartine : Lingard gives window to Ushaw : "St. Aldhelm, Beda, Alcuin": A beautiful inscription: Anglo- Saxon costume : Pugin in Italy : Thomas Skaife, miniaturist : A financial crisis : The Irish famine : Macaulay's History of England: Lingard's indignation : Croker's Review in the Quarterly : The Rambler .... Page 327 CHAPTER XVI Effects of Lingard's History : The revolution in the Protestant mind : Last edition of History : Letters to Edward Price : The Preface : Lingard's modesty : Hie Cestus artemque depono : At the age of seventy-nine: Pious enthusiasts: "Modern Saints" in Rambler: Englishmen and Romans : National customs : Death of Dr. Walsh : Wiseman, vicar-apostolic of London District : Wiseman's activity : Lingard's anxiety : The Gorham Case : Error in Wiseman's and UUathorne's pamphlets pointed out by Lingard : Acts of kindness : Ave Maris Stella : Ecclesiastical titles : Lingard's objections : The "Papal Aggression": Restoration of the hierarchy: Last letter to Walker : Distinguished visitors : Reverence and affection of ficiends and admirers : Indults from Pius IX : Inarticulo mortis : Death and burial Page 347 Appendices . . . ,, 371 Bibliography .... ....,, 383 Articles in Periodicals .387 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS John Lingard. By James Ramsay . . Frontispiece Crook Hall .... facing p. 66 Cardinal Consalvi. By Sir Thomas Lawrence „ 154 UsHAw College in 1828 . . . „ 228 Facsimile Letter to the Rev. John Walker „ 293 2 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Living under the very shadow of the parish church, it is probable that the Lingards were members of the EstabUshed Church of England; for those were the days when recusancy was a serious offence, abstention from church punishable by fine and imprisonment, and the statute book still bore those penal laws of which Burke was one day to say in a burst of passionate eloquence: "never did anything more savage proceed from the perverted ingenuity of man." But chief among the Lingards' friends figured a recusant yeoman of the name of Rennell, whose daughter Elizabeth — born 1732 — a few years older than John Lingard, and his future wife, set down a narrative of her father's sufferings, when, as the mother of the celebrated his- torian, she was induced to relate some incidents of her past life. This narrative, used by Tierney in his Memoir of Dr. Lingard, published in 1856, has unfortunately disappeared from among the papers left by him. The few extracts he gives only serve to increase our regret for the loss of the remainder, with its strange picture of a bygone day.* Elizabeth tells how: " we used to go in a cart at night to hear Mass; thie priest dressed in a round frock to resemble a poor man." For al- though active persecution of the adherents to the old faith had died down, and their practices were more or less winked at by the authorities, it was still a capital crime to harbour a priest; and it was at the risk of * In a letter dated " Arundel, August 23, 1859," Tierney writes to Mr. George Young, a Lincolnshire landed proprietor : ' ' The statement in my Memoir of the historian is founded on the narrative of his mother, and it is confirmed (if it want confirmation) by the information of Mr. Arthur Young of Osgodby, who not only assures me, in one of his letters, that many persons of the name of Lingard are still existing in the neighbourhood, but further tells me that the cottage called Lingard's Place ... of which he (Mr. A. Young) sent me the drawing that supplied the vignette, is yet standing. " He adds: "The father of Dr. Lingard and my grandfather were both born at Claxby, and frequented the village school together. My grandfather took an occasional visit (to Winchester) to see old Mr. Lingard, his former villager and playmate." WHIGS AND JACOBITES 3 their lives that men like Rennell conveyed family, friends and priest in the dead of the night to one secret place or another among the neighbouring re- cusants' country houses, there to hear Mass at break of day, and to retium as unobserved las might be to their homes. These doings could not go altogether unper- ceived, and Elizabeth speaks of the frequent fines her father had to pay, notably for his non-appearance at the parish church. The quiet and peaceable behavioiu- of the English Catholics, widely dispersed and few in number, who asked nothing but to pass unnoticed and unperceived, and, on the other hand, the spirit of toleration inherent in the English people, had produced a state of tran- quillity which nevertheless was roughly shaken by the Jacobite risings of 171 5 and 1745. Although Jacobitism had more active adherents among the Pro- testant gentry than among Catholics — not due only to the smaller numbers of the latter — ^the fact that the Stuarts had kept to the old religion naturally jmade every Catholic a Jacobite at heart, and roused the fears as well as the dormant fanaticism of the general public and of the Whigs in particiilar; and recusants in all parts of the country were brought under disquieting and dangerous observation and inquiry.* Although Lincolnshire took no open part in the risings, the strength of its Jacobitism betrayed itself during the county election of 1723. Sir Neville Hick- man, the Tory candidate who, six months previously, * After the '45, the Act of Parliament which interfered only with the estates of the Protestants who had actually taken part in the rebellion, required all Catholic estates to be registered, and, in case of default, gave one- third to the party suing, and forfeited the remainder to the king. "How this registration would facilitate the execution of the law of William III, disabling any Catholic from inheriting land, and making the Protestant next of kin, the heir, is self-evident." (Catholic England in Modern Times, J. Morris, s.J.) 4 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD had drunk the health of James III and the Duke of Ormond at a public dinner, was far ahead and carry- ing all before him till the eve of the election, when, elated with the near prospect of victory over his antagonist, Mr. Robert Vyner, and with the wine in which he had too freely indulged, he rushed into the courtyard of the old Angel Inn at Lincoln, surrounded by enthusiastic friends, and kneeling upon his bare knees, drank the health of the Jacobite king. With the fear of prcBmumre before their eyes at this bold and public avowal his supporters began to fall off, but only to the extent of 178 votes, the numbers being, Hick- man 2406, Vyner 2584.* It is not surprising, therefore, that, warned by such an experience, the authorities redoubled their vigilance over all suspected persons, and among these RenneU, the avowed papist, could not fail to be numbered. On December ist, 1745, the Lincoln Date Book tells us " this city and county round about were all in con- fusion ; a rxunour prevailed that the rebels were coming to Lincoln, the drums beat to arms, and numbers of people buried their money and other valuables for safety." It was probably early in the following year that RenneU was arrested. His daughter was then in her fourteenth year, and her narrative recounts the arrival of the pursuivants, the search of the house, the seizure of her father's papers and of his person. All the public documents relating to Lincoln Assizes in the eighteenth century have unfortunately been de- stroyed by fire, and the most diligent research has * Lincoln Date Book, R. Leary. Poll Book of the Election, Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, Vol. I, 6. Catholics were disfranchised in those days, otherwise Sir Neville Hickman's return would have been ensured, despite his indiscreet pronouncement. There were 76 considerable landowners in Lincolnshire registered as recusant non- jurors, which, at the very modest estimate of five voters to an estate, would have given 380 votes to the Jacobite candidate. AFTER CULLODEN 5 failed to bring to light the incidents of Rennell's trial, or the exact terms of his indictment. By Elizabeth's account we only know that, while making no secret of his religion, he stoutly but unavailingly denied that he was a rebel, and upon what evidence we know not, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and to the payment of a heavy fine.* Imprisoned in Lincoln Castle, Rennell had many Jacobite fellow-captives, for after Culloden a hxmdred rebels were brought to Lincoln in four wagons, having been taken prisoners in that battle. f His daughter mentions that his fine and imprisonment, added to his previous misfortunes, completed the ruin of his family. No further allusion to her father seems to have ap- peared in her narrative, so we may conclude that he did not number among the 430 rebel prisoners from the gaols of Lincoln, Carlisle, Lancaster, Chester, and York, who were transported in the month of May, 1747, from Liverpool to the Plantations. J The ruin of their father caused the dispersal of his children, and Elizabeth, at what date and in what capacity does not appear, went to London. § Thither her old playmate, John Lingard, had already migrated, * There were no " recusancy trials," properly so called, as late as the eighteenth century, so the fact of being a Catholic cannot have been one of the counts against Rennell. Harbouring a priest or making a convert might have been among them. We find that in 1733 Bishop V^illiams, Vicar- Apostolic of the Northern District, was " obliged to fly to remote places," as was reported to Propaganda, "to escape prison and torture, as the pseudo- archbishop of York (Launcelot Blackburne) had issued a warrant for his capture, on account of his having made a conversion which caused a great noise, of a Protestant minister, who nobly resigned his rich prebend, and publicly declared himself a Catholic." Later still, in 1747, Bishop York, coadjutor of the Western District, reports to Propaganda that he is "com- pelled to fly from house to house, from city to city," and that he has been "for eighteen months and more a fugitive from my ordinary residence," (Catholic England in Modern Times, J. Morris, s.j.) t Linctln Date Book, 1747. J Ibid., May 31st, 1747. § The only relation of Elizabeth Rennell whom we find mentioned in Lingard's papers is a younger sister, Mrs. Hall, to whom and to whose son Lingard showed great kindness in after years. 6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD but several years passed before accident threw them into each other's way. Happy to meet in the wilder- ness of London, the Lincolnshire man and the maid of Lincoln, whose image had never been effaced from his memory, in due time plighted their troth; buit whether John's wooing was slow, or Elizabeth hard to win, or, more probably, the means to set up house long of attainment, more years rolled on until, in the year 1767 or '68, they were married in London, John being thirty and Elizabeth thirty- five years of age. Before or after the marriage, Lingard embraced his wife's religion. The young couple in the first instance re- turned to Claxby, where a daughter, Jane, probably, so named in memory of her grandmother, Jane Lin- gard, who had died two years previoiisly, was born to them in the year 1769, but only lived a few months. After an absence of so many years circumstances had changed at Claxby. Possibly the carpenter's shop of his father had passed into other hands, and John Lin- gard and his wife determined to remove to Winchester. According to a tradition quoted by Tierney and at- tributed to Mrs. Lingard — ^but for which there is no docrunentary evidence — ^her father was related to the family of Dean Rennell of Winchester. As that family, however, was of Northamptonshire and Devonshire origin, the Dean's father, Thomas Rennell, being Rector of Bamack, in Northamptonshire, and a pre- bendary of Winchester, it would seem improbable that the humble recusant Lincoln yeoman should have been related to a Protestant clerical family of such position. We must therefore look elsewhere than to a desire to place themselves under the protection of a Winchester prebendary, to find a feason for the choice of that town by the young couple when they determined to remove from Claxby. BORN AT WINCHESTER 7 There were many old Catholic families residing at Winchester or in its neighbourhood^ some of which had Lincolnshire alliances— such as the Sheldon, Bela- syse, and Widdrington families— and there was more- over a Lincolnshire-born priest, Dom Placid Metcalfe, residing in the town from the year 1750 to 1769, who had in all probability gone there from London. Any of them may have been the means of bringing John Lingard and his wife to the town, for the ties were close — ^in those days of pains and disabilities — ^between recusants of different stations in life, and especially between priest and people belonging to the same dis- trict or county. The choice was a fortunate one, and Lingard rose in time to a good position as a carpenter and builder. They arrived in the autumn of the year 1770, and on the 5th February, 1771, their only son, John, the future historian, was bom. His bap- tismal certificate shows that he was christened the following day by James Nolan, the priest of St. Peter's Chapel, his sponsors being Richard Vinn and Ursula Cowdry.* The child showed extraordinary abilities from the earliest age;, like many another great man he owed his * An interesting manuscript account of St. Peter's Chapel by Bishop Milner states how, although Winchester had always been a favourite resort for Catholics during the days of persecution, no effort had been made to settle a priest there until the latter end of the reign of Charles II. Roger Corham, a recusant gentleman of the town, appears to have built "St. Peter's House" — where Mass was said in an upper room — for his own habitation about the year 1674, and the fact that he inscribed the name on a stone in the front of the house caused the name of the street to be changed from that of Fkshmonger Street (on account of the shambles that were held in it) to its present name of St. Peter Street. About the year 1736 the then incumbent, the Rev. James Shaw, first attempted to make a chapel for the congregation at the west end of the garden, "but the troubles of 1745 coming on, he found it impracticable to celebrate Mass in the new chapel or in the house. He was obliged to seek for different obscure situations about Hyde Abbey and else- where." Shaw was succeeded in 1746 by Patrick Joseph Savage (an Irish priest firom Paris), who died "of the falling sickness "in 1766, his successor being James Nolan, who baptised John Lingard. 8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD first instruction and his love of learning to his mother, who seems to have been in many respects superior to her station in life, and fortunately capable of giving! her little son the rudiments of education, in the days, when it was felony for a recusant to keep a school!., One of the interesting items in Mrs. Lingard's narra- tive, which have come down to us, is where she men- tions the boy's love of learning, and that she could always " keep him quiet " by giving him a history book to read; and it was her proud, and perhaps no very easy task to procure for him — ^wherever she could — the works of history, which he read with such avidity and rapt attention, and which were to make so deep and lasting an impression on his young mind. He was a handsome boy, with a twinkle of merry humour in his eye, which caused one who knew him^ well in after years to write of " the light which shone in his eyes, and which was never extinguished until the hour of his death "; of the " gaiety and elasticity of spirit which ended only with his life," the " memory which retained every thing exactly, and an intellect to which nothing hardly was difficult, even from, his earliest years." * Fortunate in his mother, John Lingard was no less so in his priest, the Rev. James Nolan, then missioner at Winchester. Attracted by the child's talents arid disposition, Mr. Nolan helped him in his studies, fos- tered his early piety, and prepared him for Confirma- tion, which he received in the year 1780 at the age of nine years, a few months after Mr. Nolan's death. f The first sorrow of the boy's life — his first acquaint- ance with death — came to him when the zealous priest * MS. notes of Provost Walker, of Lancaster. t Letter from the Rev. Mr. CoUingridge, of Winchester, to Mr. George Young, July 31st, 1859. CHILDHOOD 9 fell a victim to a malignant fever caught in attending the French prisoners in the " King's House " at Win- chester. War had been declared between England and France in 1778, when Louis XVI had begun to help America to throw off its dependence on England, and a large number of French prisoners were sent to Win- chester. The fever which broke out, not only carried off many htmdreds of them, but, together with Mr. Nolan, most of their medical attendants and the others who guarded and caned for them. Under these tragic circumstances, a zealous young priest of the London district, only twenty-five years of age, the Rev. John Milner, librarian of the old English Chapter, volunteered, with the approval of Bishop Chal- loner, vicar-apostolic of the district, to go to Win- chester. He attended the unhappy sufferers with such ardent zeal and charity that on the death of Mr. Nolan he was appointed his successor in October, 1779. The man who was to prove himself the most prominent Catholic of his time was at first objected to by his congregation, who complained that the Bishop had sent them a boy: "but they very soon changed their sentiments," adds his biographer.* So it was Milner, whose future hostility to Lingard was to prove both great and enduring, who stood by the boy's side when he was confirmed by Bishop James Talbot, coadjutor to Bishop Challoner — that venerable prelate being then in feeble old age and near his end.f * Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner, pp. 9, 10. + Bishop Challoner died January 12th, 1781, in the ninety-first year of his age. His coadjutor was the Hon. and Rev. James Talbot, Bishop of Birtha in partibus, brother of the fourteenth Earl of Shrewsbury. He is memorable as being one of the latest, if not actually the last case of an episcopal appoint- ment in which the rights of the house of Stuart were recognised by the Holy See. When James III died in 1766, Pope Clement XIH resolutely refused to Charles Edward the recognition as & reigning sovereign which had been granted to his father, and banished from Rome the superiors of the English and Scots colleges, the Irish Dominicans, and Franciscans for receiving 10 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Two years before this time an event occxirred which not only was to affect John Lingard, together with the whole mass of his co-religionists, but was preluded by circumstances which were to have so important a bear- ing upon the second half — the last forty years — of his long life, that it seems necessary to set them down. The event was the Catholic Relief Bill of 1778, the first dawn of relief after the dark night which had succeeded the glimmering delusive hopes in the short reig^ of James II.* The circumstances which were to serve as the object- lesson, with which Lord Chancellor Camden and Edmund Burke were to wrest that Relief Act from the conscience of the legislature were briefly as follows: Thomas Benison, an opulent lawyer of Hornby Hall, in the romantic valley of the Lune, in Lancashire, had come to the estate by his marriage with Anne Winder, sole daughter and heiress of John Dowbiggin of West- minster. She was of the old faith, and registered as a Catholic non -juror in 171 7. To them, seven years later, was bom an only daughter, Anne, who at her Prince Charles with royal honours, after His Holiness had made known that he would not recognise him as king. But in 1759 James was still alive, and to " His Majesty " Dr. Stonor, the English agent, presented Dr. Challoner's petition in favour of James Talbot. Another distinction was also his — that of having been the last priest to be brought before the Courts under the Penal Laws. He was tried at the Old Bailey, at least twice, in the years 1769 and 1771, for the sole offence of having exercised his episcopal functions, and was only acquitted for want of evidence. (See E. H. Burton, Life of Bishop Challoner, II, p. 4.) * James II, whose blundering attempts in favour of his Catholic subjects only succeeded in establishing Protestantism more firmly in England than ever before, did two things at least for which they had reason to thank him. He broke the back of active persecution by forbidding the publication of the Recusancy Rolls, an act which William III — who was no persecutor — was too enlightened to revoke, and he regulated a better organisation of the spiritual jurisdiction within his realms. There had been only one Vicar- Apostolic in all England. Under James II the number was raised to two, and then to four, with districts clearly defined. The number had subse- quently been raised to eight, a few years before the restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850. MRS. FENWICK ii father's death in 1735— he died intestate, as many lawyers die — found herself a considerable heiress. Anne Benison, at the agie of eleven, appointed by deed her mother and a near relative, Mr. ffaithwaite, to be her gxiardians, and on coming of age, in 1746, took the management of her estates in her own hands. In 1752 she married John Fenwick of Burrow Hall, a neigh- bouring squire, with an estate of £2000 a year. It was a marriage of affection, and bitterly Anne wept when the lifeless body of her yoimg husband was brought home from the hunting-field, on a fatal morn- ing in the year 1757. On her marriage she had made over her estates to him and his heirs, to enable him to raise money, and when he would have reconveyed them to her, he found that he could not legally do so, on accoimt of thte rigorous penal laws against the professors of thte Catholic religion. As he died child- less and intestate, his widow was left to the mercy of his brother and successor, Thomas Fenwick, a lawyer of Gray's Inn, who took advantage of the disabilities under which Irtecusants lay, to set about depriving Mrs. Fenwick of her property and means of subsistence.* He had received great kindness at her hands, and the cruelty of recourse to a law, which was generally left in merciful desuetude, excited general comment and condemnation. Nor was Mrs. Fenwick a woman to sit still under injustice and persecution. Well educated and ener- getic, supported by powerful friends, she spent fifteen years in anxious endeavoxurs to obt3in relief. She went to London and laid her case before Lord Camden, who warmly espoused her cause, and brought in a private Bill in the Hotise of Lords for her relief in 1772. "When he spoke of the harshness pf the * Act of loth and nth of William III. 12 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD case," wrote Charles Butler, " and the claims of the Catholics on the humanity and the wisdom pf the House for their relief, he was heard with an unanimous burst of applause." A few days later, Burke, in a speech to the electors at Bristol, said: " So ineffectual is the power of legal evasion against legal iniquity, that it was but the other day that a lady of condition, beyond the middle of life, was on the point of being stripped of her whole fortune by a near relation, to whom she had been a friend and a benefactor, and she must have been totally ruined, without a power of redress or mitigation from a Court of Law, had not the legislature itself rushed in, and by a special Act of Parliament rescued her from the injustice of its own statutes." * Mrs. Fenwick did not long simrive her hard-won victory, nor did she live to see its consequence in the Rehef Act of 1778. She had returned to Hornby Hall after her husband's death, where she lived with her mother, Mrs. Benison, and died in 1777, a few months before the passing of the Bill, the result of the sympathy which she had evoked. She was very charitable, and had a chaplain, the Rev. Thomas Butler, whom she furnished with means to build a house containing a tiny chapel on land adjoining Hornby Hall. She also left him money to buy a farm where- with to endow Jhe mission. To it she left a part of her furniture and plate, together with her portrait; and the house, which was built in 1770 — shortly before John Lingard's birtji — vras destined to become his home * Charles Butler's Historical Memoirs, Vol. Ill, pp. 284-5, ed. 1822. Gillow's Cath. Bio. Diet. In Burke's speech at Bristol, quoted above, referring to the constructive recusancy to which Catholics were liable by the Statute of George I, he ex- claimed : ' ' Such was the situation of the Catholics at this time that they not only shrunk from the frowns of a stern magistrate, but were obliged to fly from their very species — a kind of universal subserviency that made the very servant behind their chair the arbiter of their lives and fortunes. " THE RELIEF, BILL 13 and the scene of his indefatigable MteraJry labours. The table on which he wrote, and every piece of furniture — ^each bearing the mark of the seventeenth- or eighteenth-century craftsman — were the bequest of Mis- tress Anne Fenwick, and remain in the house to this day. By the ReHef Bill of 1778 (i8th George III.) the particular statute which chiefly prevented English Roman Catholics from safely and quietly enjoying their landed property, and some other laws under which they suffered, were partially repealed: " For the Act," wrote Charles Butler, " the Catholics were particularly in- debted to Mr. Edmund Burke: he introduced them to Mr. Fox. From this time the divine eloquence of each was, on every occasion that offered, uniformly exerted in their favour." * The Roman Catholic was beginning, in fact, to share with the negro — ^though perhaps not in an equal pro- portion — the sympathy and the attention of the philan- thropist and the politician, his cause was becoming a party cry.f The relief — small as it was — of the Act of 1778 * Charles Butler. A Memoir of the Catholic Relief Bill, passed in 1827, with a preliminary minute of all the divisions in each House of Parliament on the Catholic claims subsequent to the year 1778. Dedicated by C. Butler to Henry, Lord Holland, in gratitude for all he and his late uncle, Charles James Fox, had done for the cause. t The same year, 1772, which saw Mrs. Fenwick's Bill pass the House of Lords, was memorable to the negro by the decision of the Court of King's Bench in the month of June, in the case of Somerset — a slave claimed by his master — that slavery could not exist in Great Britain. And only four years separated the Emancipation of the Catholics, in 1829, and the Act of Aboli- tion of Slavery in the British Colonies in August, 1833. Charles Butler, who for forty-three years attended almost every debate on the Catholic question in the English Parliament before 1800, and in the Parliament of the Union afterwards, is loud in his praise of Earl Grey, Lord Holland, and Lord Grenville in the abortive attempts of 1807, as well as of Pitt in the success of 1791. "Imagination cannot conceive more ability, more candour, or more kindness than have been displayed in these debates. They have left nothing for the Catholics to desire." [^Reminiscences, Vol. I, pp. 344-346.) 14 LIFE OE JOHN LINGARD seemed, however, destined to be frtistrated. Its object of giving safety and quietude of possession to papists appeared to the fanatic a dangerous and wicked inno- vation, to be rectifidd by fire and sword, — and the Gordon Riots were among the first results of the measure. " The Catholic Relief Act had passed into law with unexpected ease and rapidity, to the astonishment of the Catholics themselves. The King was happy in the assured allegiance of a large body of his subjects in his three kingdoms. . . . The Church of England as represented by the spiritual peers had acquiesced in the measure. . . . But the full price had yet to be paid. The Dissenters had not been reckoned with, and their deep displeasure had not been taken into account. Yet their resentment was keen, and jealousy of the Papists spread among them in smouldering and suppressed manner. For two long years it orily made itself perceived by muttered threatenings, until at length in 1780 it burst into flame, and the No Popery riots in London, Edinburgh and Bristol led the way to these mad scenes of bloodshed, incendiarism and rapine in which the cause of Catholic Emancipation re- ceived its baptism of fire." * As the Puritans in the time of Charles I, as the Nonconformists in the days of James II — ^who opposed relief from disabilities for themselves which the papists were to share — so the Dissenters of 1780, still suffer- ing imder minor disabilities, were far more hostile to Catholics than the members of the Church of England ;i and John Wesley added fuel to the flame by his pamphlet in defence of thfe " Protestant Association," which sprang into existence at this time. Led by the strange fantastic figirre whose namte is attached to its fanatical fiury, the mob which raged * Burton's Life of Challoner, Vol, II, pp. 212, 213. THE GORDON RIOTS 15 through London and possessed it — under the very eyes of supine and paralysed magistrates— for the space of a week, has had its acts recorded nowhere more vividly or accurately than in the pages of Barnaby Rudge. The frenzy, which made bonfires of the Embassy chapels, and destroyed the houses of the Catholics, ended by attacking Newgate and the Bank of England.* Although the riots spread to various parts of the provinces— notably to Bath, where Bishop Walmesley, vicar-apostolic, had his house burnt, and with it all the archives of the Western District — there appears to have been no distxorbance at Winchester, when the news of the terrible week swept with chill breath over the little groups of trembling Catholics in all parts of the country, causing them to fear that their Relief Bill hid but ushered in a renewal of persecution. Then came the reassuring tidings that Parliament had refused to repeal the Act, and that the loss and damage occa- sioned by the riots should be made good.f Toi a man in his ninetieth year such scenes of terror could but bring the shattering of the frail vessel of * Edmund Burke's brother Richard, in a letter dated "June 7, 1780, in what was London," says : " This is the fourth day that the Metropolis of England (once of the world) is possessed by an enraged, furious, and numerous enemy. Their outrages are beyond description, and meet with no resist- ance. . . . The Bank is by rumour the great object for to-night. I may also assure you that no plan of defence, or much less of offence, is resolved on. May I be mistaken 1 The magistrates have all refused to act. This night delivers us to a furious rabble, and an army who, I fear, have but little dis- cipline." {Burke's Correspondence, 1844 ed., II, 350.) Dr. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale : " At night they set fire to the Fleet and the King's Bench, and I know not how many other places ; and one might see the gleam of conflagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. . . . Such a time of terror you have been happy in not seeing." (Boswell's Life of Johnson, under date June, 1780.) Even Walpole's careless pen takes on an unaccustomed gravity when he writes : " A capital blazing and held in terror for a week by so contemptible a rabble will not tell well in story." (Letter to Sir Horace Mann, July 24th, 1780.) t The claims of private persons amounted to ;^i30,ooo. The list of Catholic houses destroyed numbered fifty-eight. i6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD remaining life. Bishop Challoner's lodgings were but ten minutes' walk from the Sardinian Embassy, and after the rioters had completed their work there, they announced their intention of chairing him in derision, " and thus to carry about, in a kind of mock triumph, this peaceable and venerable old man upon their frantic expeditions. How this barbarous ceremony would have ended God only knows."* Hurried away by his chaplains at eleven o'clock at night, he was conveyed in Lady Stourton's carriage to the house of his friend, Mr. Mawhood, at Finchley. There he remained in personal safety, but with a heart wrung by the sufferings of his flock, his personal friends and spiritual children. The last few months of his life were spent in London, and one of his last acts was to comply with' the Rev. Mr. Nolan's a:pplica- tion for a barse at Douay College for little Johh Lin-; gard, an act which links the life of a man bom two) years before the death of James II and William III with that of one who was to live to see the restoratiioni of the Catholic Hierarchy in the reign of Queen Victoria. Mr. Milner was in London when the Bishop died on Friday, the 1 2th January, and carried the news to Winchester, where he anno.unced it to his congregation on the following Simday in a fervent and forcible discourse. The sermon is interesting as being the first composition Milner ever published. It is a glow- ing panegyric of the holy Bishop, full of unction and practical instruction, and its language is superior jto the usual productions of the Catholic clergy of the * Milner's Funeral Discourse, Barnard, in his biography of Bishop Challoner, mentions how he specially grieved over the loss of the place where he was accustomed to preach — the old " Ship Tavern," that had been burnt to the ground. (Burton's Life oj Challoner, II, pp. 266-73.) MilLNER AND LINGARD 17 time, whose foreign education had a bad effect upon! their English. Among the hearers perhaps none lis- tened with more rapt attention, and a more glowing response of love and reverence, than the bright-eyed boy with his personal debt to the dqad pirelate for hig future mission in life. These were the personal experiences of John Lin- gard when nine years old, bringing the sense of actuality to the traditions his mind had imbibed at his mother's knee, in winter evenings by the fire, and in his father's workshop— tales of his grandfather's prison —perhaps of Royalist and Roundhead, of Jacobite and Whig — most certainly of hair-breadth escapes of pm- suivant-himted " massing-priests," of martyrdoms, and of the heroism; in what has truly been called " the dogged obstinacy " in their recusancy of the pre- emancipation English Catholics. Both' Bishop Challoner and Mr. Nolan having died, it fell to Mr. Milner to obtain the confirmation of Lingard's burse at Douay from the prelate's succes- sor, Bishop James Talbot, as vicar-apostolic of the London District. This act in course of time magnified itself in Milner 's imagination — somewhat prone to ex- aggerate — into, a singling out by himself of the boy " out of a crowd of his companions," for which Lin- gar d failed to show due gratitude in after years.* * Nearly forty years later, Milner further claimed to have provided, "by his zeal and laborious efforts," young Lingard with the " means of cultivating his superior talents." (Orthodox Journal, Vol. VII, p. 304.) When Lingard heard of the report, he virote to his friend Dr. Kirk (December l8th, 1819) : " I was never under any obligation to him than this — his predecessor had spoken to the bishop to send me to College : he ap- proved of the desire. But I was never indebted to him for a farthing. Were it not ridiculous, I would expose the falsehood of his insinuation, as if he had laboured, etc., to procure me the means of studying at Douay. He never did anything in the world for me, nor did I want it of him." CHAPTER II TO part from their sons for the whole period of their education — with no hope of seeing, from time to time, their progress from childhood to manhood — was the lot for more than two hundred years of the women who held to the old faith in England. And it was as great a bneach of the law to send their children, sons or daughters, overseas, as it was to keep a tutor for them at home; while schools of their own faith were equally prohibited.* It is true that here and there a small school carried on a secret and precarious existence ; thiat at Twyford, near Winchester — which had been founded in the reign of James II, and where Alexander Pope spent his earliest schooldays — ^being the only boys' school for Catholics in the South of England. f But of college or seminary for laymen or clerics was there none, and all had to go to one or other of the English colleges abroad for their education. After the Relief Act of 1778, they could do so with less danger; one of the chief advantages of that bill having been the abolition of the reward of one hundred pounds to any " In- former " against Catholic priests or schoolmasters, al- * See Appendix B. \ A boys' boarding school was kept by a Mr. Newby at Fernyhalgh, near Preston, and at the same place " Dame Alice ' had a mixed day school. At Hammersmith and at York were two schools for girls carried on by nuns who wore no distinctive dress : that at Hammersmith having been established under the protection of Queen Catherine of Braganza. At the time of the Titus Oates plot, the Hammersmith nuns and their chaplain were forced to fly, and remain some time in hiding, and after the '45 their house was searched for arms. Otherwise they remained undisturbed. 18 DEPARTURE FOR DOUAY 19 though an informer against a parent for sending his children to be educated beyond the seas, could still claim the reward of one hundred pounds on a convic- tion being obtained.* The war between England and France was still four months from its close when, in the month of September, 1782, John Lingard sailed from England to t^ke up his burse at Douay: and the perils of capture in addition to the ordinary dangers of eighteenth- century travel by land and sea, were no doubt very present to his mother's mind, when her only son, at the age of eleven, left her side for the first time since his birth, in the company and care of two Irish priests bound for the same place. Owing to the war, the travellers sailed from Margate to Ostend, and on the 30th September, at five o'clock in the afternoon, John Lingard entered the portals of the English College: a date so memor- able and dear, that to the end of his life he never failed to honour it. Sixty-five years later, as on many a previous anniversary, he begins a letter to a friend: "30 September, 1847. 30 September, 1782, a boy called John Lingard entered the portals of Douai College. Deo Gratias. I have always kept this day with a bottle of my best wine. I wish you were here to partake with me." And in response to an inquiry as to the journey, he writes : " /\,th October, 1847. . . . You ask, where did I sail from? Dover? No, Margate for Ostend. It was during the war with France. Who took me? Two Irish priests. At that time priests were ordained in Ireland, and then sent to the Irish College at Douay to study theology. Why so? Because * See Amherst. {History of Calholif Emancipation, I, p. 107.) 20 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD by saying Mass for retributions they managed partly to support themselves. The retributions went to the College treasury. I never saw them after I got to Douay. . . ."* As we have lately been reminded,f the English Col- lege at Douay was, from its establishment, no petty seminary, ill-staffed and poorly equipped, but in the opinion of its founder, Allen, quondam Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, as well fitted to impart a liberal education as the Oxford and Cambridge of his day. His object it was: " to draw into this College the best wittes in England, that were either Catholikly bent, or desirous of more exact education than is these dales in either of the Universities (where, through the delicacie of that sect, there is no art, holy or prophane, thoroughly studied, and some not touched at all)." J William Allen, the future cardinal, born in 1532, had entered Oriel College, where he took his B.A. degree in 1550, and that of M.A. three years later. He was then elected Fellow of his college, and later on became Canon of York and Principal of St. Mary's Hall. This was during the reign of Mary, and his adherence to the old religion compelled him to re- sign his post in the following reign, and retire across the seas to Louvain, in the year 1 5 60. Nine years later he went to Douay. It had been the desire of his heart to devise some scheme by which the suc- cession of the English priesthood could be continued, as the old Marian priests dropped off; and while on a journey to Rome in 1566 with his former tutor, Morgan Philips, ex-provost of Oriel, and De Ven- * Letters to Rev. John Walker, of Scarborough. t Dublin Review, July, igro, p. 103 seq.. Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P. X Allen's Afologie, p. 23, THE ENGLISH COLLEGE 21 deville, professor of canon law at Doiiay University, he had, upon the latter mentioning some scheme for the relief of slaves at Barbary, set forth the needs of his own coimtry and of preserving the poor remains of religion so earnestly, as to make a deep impression on that gentleman's mind. Their journey ended, Allen returned to Louvain, but soon received an invitation from De Vendeville to come to Douay, where, after frequent and lengthy conferenoes, the English College came into being ;■ Morgan Philips laying down the first sum, of money towards purchasing a house, aided by large donations from the three rich monasteries of St. Vaast in Arras, Marchienne, and Auchienne. Allen invited the remains of Catholic Oxford and Cambridge, hitherto scattered in various universities of France and Flanders, and before long the college so increased that it numbered some 150 persons, whereof eight or nine were eminent doctors of divinity. Dr. Allen, its first president, journeyed to Rome in 1575, well recom- mended by a common letter from the University, of Douay, and the joint concurrence of the neighbouring abbots. Pope Gregory XIII received him kindly, and by a grant dated April 1 5th, 1575, made an allow- ance of one hundred Roman crowns a month out of the treasury of the Holy See to the new college, which was subsequently augmented to an annual pension of two thousand crowns. The house was confirmed by the Pope as an ecclesiastical seminary — ^the first formed under the regulations of the decrees of the Council of Trent.* * See Tierney's Dodd. Vol. II, p. 158 seq. Among the men who gathered round Allen was Gregory Martin, one of the original scholars of St. John's College, Oxford, according to Wood "a most excellent linguist, exactly read and versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and went beyond all in his time in humane Literature, whether in poetry or prose." Wood testifies to " his incredible industry," to his " great learning and know- ledge, especially in the Greek and Hebrew Tongues," to the "extraordinary 22 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD When John Lingard entered its walls, the English College had been settled at Douay for more than two centuries, with the exception of fifteen years — from 1578 to 1593 — when Dr. Allen, owing to the disturbed state of the Spanish Netherlands, of which Douay then formed part, was forced to rfemove the college to Rheims, where they were kindly received by the family of Guise.* Douay has been called " Catholic England beyond the Seas.'.' In addition to the English College there was an Anglo-Benedictine monastery and school, an English Franciscan monastery as well as the Scots College, and the Irish, to which the two priests who had conveyed Lingard to Douay were bound. More- over, there was a colony of English recusant families modesty and moderation in his behaviour.'' (Athence, V, 168-70.) Martin was the actual translator of the Douay Bible, working in collaboration with Allen himself and with Richard Bristow, M.A. of Oxford, one of the brightest lights of the University in his time, and fellow-elect of Exeter College, when he was compelled to withdraw across the seas. He, with Edmund Campion, the future martyr, was selected to hold a public disputation before Queen Elizabeth when she visited Oxford on September 3rd, 1566. Thomas Worthington, the fourth collaborator in the work, was also an Oxford man, and they, with Stapleton, Edward Risdon, Webb, Bailey, and others, made up a company of men which has been described as " literally the flower of the Universities." (See The Origin of the Douay Bible, Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., Dublin Review, July, igio.) The history of the removal to Rheims is somewhat obscure. Camden attributes it to an agreement between Elizabeth and Spain. "Indeed, the report went," writes Dodd, " that the English Agent did move for their removal ; and not only that, but for having Dr. Allen, and some others, delivered up to Queen Elizabeth by way of preliminaries to a treaty." The same is positively asserted by Persons \Philofater, 65, 66-7). According to Dodd, "the disturbances were occasioned by the Huguenots, who, out of hatred for religion, or for the hopes of plunder, lay privately in the Town and instilled such notions into the common people as if the English, who resided among them, were in the French interest, and had a design to deliver up the town" (Vol. n, p. 166). At Rheims the College flourished in spite of Queen Elizabeth, who tried, through her ambassador in Paris, to put a stop to their settlement (Philopater, 66). It is interesting to find that Mary Queen of Scots, though in prison, was not unmindful of the English exiles, and inter- ceded for them with the House of Guise. In a short time the Douay Diary gives an account of two hundred persons either in the house of Rheims or dependent upon it. PRESIDENT GIBSON 23 in the town, some of whom had been there for genera- tions, and who had originally sought Douay as a place of refuge from the penal laws. The president of the college at the time of Lingard's arrival was the Rev. William Gibson — the fifteenth since Dr. Allen — who had succeeded the Rev. H. Tich- bourne Bloimt the previoiis year. The new president was a blunt north- countryman, somewhat rough of speech aad autocratic in action, who had taken up the reins of government at a difficult time. The college had been in financial difficrilties at the beginning of the eighteenth century, from which it had been rescued by the energy of Dr. Witham, its president from 1 7 15 to 1738, who was justly regarded as its second founder. He had paid all the debts and rebuilt a great part of the college, but unfortunately died before completing the work. His three immediate successors did little or nothing to continue it, but William Gibson set to work with characteristic energy and on a scale which, notwithstanding the money collected in England for the purpose, entailed a considerable debt. A success- ful appeal for funds was made to Propaganda, as had been done more than once in former times, for Douay was still a " pontifical college " and in receipt of a pension from the treasury of the Holy See. But presi- dent Gibson's whole manner of government was said to be extravagant and out of proportion to the means and resources of the college. His " procurator " * resigned, and Bishop James Talbot, V. A. of the London Dis- trict, himself a liberal bienefactor to the college, found it necessary to write and warn Dr. Gibson of his apprehensions as to the state of affairs. f * The office of "procurator" is more or less equivalent to that of a "bursar." t See Ward's Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, Vol. I, pp. 55, S6- 24 LIFE OE JOHN LINGARD These difificulties would not come within the ken of a new boy, and the magnificence of his president 'si manner of govemmient would but serve to enhance the sense of contrast, afforded by the whole vista that met the bright observant eyes which looked upon it for the first tinie. Here, those things were held in the highest place of public honour, which at home had belen dishonoured: the poor shed in the garden of St. Peter's house at Winchester, where John Lingard and his co-religionists had met in silence and secrecy — the very name of the " Mass " concealed for safety under that of " prayers " — while the glorious and venerable pile of the Cathedral beheld an alien worship, was now changed to the stateliest ceremonies in chapter and choir. At home his priests were disguised as laymen, with no distinctive sign whatever, in dress or title, of their office: here, on his first arrival, the "prefect of the wardrobe " gavie him a cassock and a " collar- band," which lay and clericaj students indiscriminately wore. In a word, he had exchanged an atmosphere of scorn and contumely and timorous insecurity for the openness of liberty and safety ; he had ceased to be an alien in his native land.* * The sense of insecurity was not unwarranted, notwithstanding the gradual revulsion of pubHc sentiment, which was beginning to be opposed to the inflicting of penalties for religious opinions and practices. The Third Blue Book of the " Catholic Committee" gives the following case of prosecu- tions in Yorkshire : "In the year 1782 two very poor Catholic dissenting labourers and their Wives were summoned by one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, and fined one shilling each for not repairing to church, and the Constable raised it by distraining in the house of one of them an oak Table, a fir Table, and a plate shelf; in the house of the other a shelf, and two dozen of delft plates, one pewter dish and four pewter plates, one oak table, and one arm-chair. The sale was publicly called at the Market day, and the goods were sold by auction at their respective houses. The Constable's bill was in these words : — s d " To not attending Church 2 o To a warrant ... ... ... ... 10 To a Constable's expenses 2 o PATRIOTIC RECUSANTS 25 And yet, next after his fidelity to his Church, no sentiment burned more hotly in the breast of the pre- emancipation Catholic than devotion to his country.. The evidence is overwhelming: from the seminary priest who left the walls of Douay College with his life in his hands, to rninister to the spiritual wants of his countrymen, down to the lads within those walls, whpse joy, on every English victory over the French almost transgressed the bounds of safety, the same strong patriotism prevailed.* As the true passionate lover does not suffer the taunts and cruelty of his mistress to diminish his affec- tion, but rather to strike it inward to his secret heart — while he trusts in the day to come, when her eyes will be opened to the fidelity of his service, and scorn and misapprehension will cease to be — so did the recusants hope against hope, and love their country with an undying love. They had seen themselves pursued as traitors to the king — ^though they had rallied roimd his standard to the last man — ^by the parliamentarians who sent that king to the scaffold, and in a later day by the conspirators who helped a foreign prince to the English throne; and the country, they loved refused, until she was in the direst straits, to suffer them, to shed their blood in her service. f * Needless to say, Douay had long ceased to form part of the Spanish Netherlands, having been taken by Louis XIV in 1667. Charles Butler, who had been brought up at Douay, says in his Refninisce^ices : "It should be mentioned that notwithstanding their exile and persecution, the hearts of the English scholars educated in these foreign colleges remained truly English. This was frequently observed by those among whom they were domiciled. During the war which was closed by the peace of Paris, every victory which the English gained over the French was a triumph to the English boys : their superiors were more than once admonished by the magistrates and their friends not to make their joy on these occasions too noisy. The salutary and incontrovertible truth that one Englishman can any day beat two Frenchmen was as firmly believed and as ably demonstrated at Douay and St. Omer as it could be at Eton or Winchester." (Vol. I, p. 9, 3rd edition, 1827.) t Edmund Burke thus magnificently describes the import of the Catholic 26 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Lingard was second to none in thiese sentinaents, wh,ichj as tinue went on, were to make him one of the most diligent labourers in thp task of reconciliation and appeasement. And with the candid fair-mindedness which characterised him throughout his life, he was anxious to find excuses for his country's unjust acts. Sixty-five years later, in answer to a request from thfe Rev. E. Price for advice as to a history of the penal laws, he writes: "Hornby, January loth, 1847, . . . The history of the penal laws regularly narrated might perhaps be a periculoscB plenum opus alecB if it provoked a controversy, or a counter-publication of cases of catholic persecution from Foxe's Martyrs. For cer- tainly the conduct of Fathers Campion and Persons fur- nished a very plausible pretext for the first murderous laws against us, and the gunpowder plot for the second batch under James I. . . ." * address to the King in 1778: "When the English nation seemed to be dangerously if not irrevocably divided ; when one, and that the most growing branch, was torn from the parent stock, and ingrafted on the power of France, a great terror fell upon this kingdom. On a sudden we awakened from our dreams of conquest, and saw ourselves threatened with an immediate invasion, which we were at the time very ill prepared to resist. You remember the cloud that gloomed over us all. In that hour of our dismay, from the bottom of the hiding-places into which the indiscriminate rigour of our statutes had driven them, came out the body of the Roman Catholicks. They appeared before the steps of a tottering throne, with one of the most sober, measured, steady, and dutiful addresses that was ever presented to the Crown. It was no holiday ceremony, no anniversary compliment of parade and shows. It was signed by almost every gentleman of that persuasion of note and property in England. At such a. crisis, nothing but a decided resolution to stand or fall with their country could have dictated such an address ; the direct tendency of which was to cut off all retreat, and to render them peculiarly obnoxious to an invader of their own communion. The address showed what I long languished to see — that all the subjects of England had cast off all foreign views and connexions, and that every man looked for his relief from every grievance at the hands only of his own natural government." {Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1780.) The American Congress had invited Catholics to emigrate to the States, " promising every individual a propor- tional quantity of land according to his birth and station of life, with full toleration." ("Stapleton to Sir Thomas Gascoigne, July 24th, 1778"; Burton's Life of Challoner, II, p. 192.) * In the year 1818, Charles Butler was finishing the history of the THE MISSIONARY OATH 27 John Lingaxd was destined for the priesthood, and the ten years of his college life were to be devoted to preparing himself for that estate, and for the taking of the oath which bound every seminary priest to go, if commanded, as a missioner to England; and great would have been his astonishment had he been told, that his ordination would be one of the first to take place in his native land, since the founding of [the English College at Douay. The solemnity and ,the significance of the oath which bound them, to be mis- English Catholics, and it is to be regretted that Lingard's answer to the first of the two following letters has not been preserved. " Lincoln's Inn, 23 February^ 1818. "... I find my history pf the English Catholics a work of greater delicacy. The claim of truth on an historian is imperious — on the other hand, one does not like to expose failings which in some degree afi"ect the whole body. . . . laM March, 1818. Talking to you confidentially I cannot help acknowledging that in the reign of Elizabeth some measures of rigour against the Catholics were excusable. The deposing Doctrine appears to me to have (been) universally acknowledged by all Seminary priests and religious ; and their influence over the general body of Catholics was very great. The sentence of deposition had been sanctioned by three Popes, and the King of Spain, by far the most powerful monarch of the time, was preparing to execute it. Under these circum- stances some strong precautions were certainly necessary, but those which were adopted exceeded all the_ bounds of moderation. . . . The grounds of distrust were naturally increased by the intrigues of Father Persons in Spain. . . . With this impression on the subject, I think I have expressed myself with moderation and fairness. Pray let me have your candid sentiments on this head." (Charles Butler's Letter Book, British Museum MS., 25, 127. Plut. CXXXV A., Vol. III.) In Lingard's answer to the latter letter he warns his friend that he may furnish their enemies with arms against Catholic emancipation. He continues : — "Of Father Persons I never entertained any other opinion than that which you express. When the oath, or rather form of oath printed in my 'documents' had been approved by Charles II, it was submitted to the heads of all the religious orders in England except the Jesuits. In the minutes of the Chapter it is stated that on the question being put that it be communicated to the superiors of the Jesuits it was unanimously decided in the negative. . . . This, entered as it was on the journals of the Chapter, made a strong impression on my mind when I saw it, and made me believe that much of what Protestant writers objected to our forefathers might be true." In his history of Elizabeth's reign we find Lingard's opinion thus expressed, after relating the execution of Father Campion and his two fellow -martyrs, Sherwin and Bryant : — " Their hesitation to deny the deposing power (a power then indeed maintained by the greater number of divines in Catholic kingdoms) rendered their loyalty very problematical, in case of an attempt to enforce the bull by any foreign prince. It furnished sufficient reason to watch their conduct with an eye of jealousy, and to require security for their good behaviour on the approach of danger, but could not justify their execution for an imaginary ofience. The proper remedy would have been to oflfer liberty of conscience to all Catholics who would abjure the temporal pretensions of the pontiff"." {History of England, Vol. VIII, p. 150, ed. 1844.) "' The three martyrs ' suffered the punishment of traitors, asserting their innocence, and praying with their last breath for the Queen as their legitimate sovereign." {Ibid., p. 148.) 28 LIFE OF. JOHN LINGARD sioners to England were indelibly written on the minds and hearts of the men of Doxoay: the martyrology of their college was their proud and passionately re- vered possession. It was a glorious record, showing how the piurpose of its founder had been fulfilled. During the first twelve years of her existence their Alma Mater had sent a himdred of her sons to labour in that danger-encompassed viney^xd, and from the day (November ,29th; 1577) when her proto-martyr, Cuthbert Mayne, Elizabeth's first priestly victim, suf- fered at Tyburn the death invented by Henry VIII for those who denied his spiritual supremacy — the " un- heard-of butchery, " * of rope and knife and fire com- bined, until that which saw the execution at York of the Rev. Thomas Thwing^ (October ,23rd, 1680), the long roll of Douay martyrs includes the names of one hundred and sixty priests. These were the men who, through the waters of adversity, carried aloft the torch which, as has been finely said, was rekindled in Eng- land by Cardinal Reginald Pole, and safely borne from hand to hand until it reached that of Cardinal Newman, chief representative of that " new people " foreseen, as by, a prophet of old, by the venerable Challoner.f Lingard's college career did not belie the promise of his childhood. He drank deeply, and insatia:bly, at the wells of knowledge, imbibing at once the sciences taught him and the spirit of admiration for Douay, and devotion to her every habit and practice and * Cardinal Pole's words to Henry VIII, in his epistle " De Unitate." t Don) R^n6 Ancel. (Ligation du Cardinal Polus. ) When Bishop Challoner heard from the Scotch Bishop Hay that the Catholic noblemen had refused him admission to their meeting at the Thatched House Tavern when preparing their address to the King in 17781 he paused, and then spoke of their disregard for their clergy, and that many would fall from their religion. Hay lamented this, because they supported priests and chapels, and religion would suffer greatly. Upon this the Bishop again paused, then said : "There will be a new people." (Burton : Life of Bishop Challoner, Vol. II, pp. 213-14.) THE COURSE OF STUDY 29 mode of thought which' were to abide with him throughout his life. The course of studies at Douay consisted of two chief divisions — ^the course of " Humanities," which lasted five years, and consisted of the ordinalry scholastic education of the period, and the course of " Divinity," which consisted of two years' philosophy and four years' theology. The first was divided into classes known respectively as figures or rudiments, 'grammar, syntax, poetry and rhetoric. When a boy had finished his rhetoric, if a layman, his school days were generally at an end, and he returned to England;, if destined for the priesthood, he entered on the course of "Divinity." According to Charles Butler, the Church students formed the large majority. Out of a total, including Divinity students, of about one hundred, or sometimes rather more, at least seventy or eighty were preparing for the priesthood. He says in his Reminiscences, of foreign colleges: " The classics were well taught, but the main object of them being to form members for the Church, they were not calculated to qualify the scholars either for business, the learned professions, or the higher scenes of life. Writing, arithmetic and geography were little regarded in them; modern history was scarcely mentioned. . . . On two accounts — cheapness and universal equality of treat- ment — the foreign education of which we are speaking was entitled to the highest praise. The instruction, the dress, the board, the pocket-money, the ornamental accomplish- ments of music, dancing and fencing, everything except physic was defrayed for the moderate yearly sum of £30. There was no distinction of rank. When the late Duke of Norfolk was at Douay College, he rose at the same hour, studied and said his lessons in the same classes, ate at the same table, and wore the same uniform as the other boys." 30 LIFE OF, JOHN LINGARD According to the standards then in vogue, the educa- tion at Douay was a good one ; the plan of its studies almost exclusively classical. At the end of his course a boy of ordinary abilities had a sound knowledge of Greek and Latin, and generally of French; boys of extraordinary abilities, like Lingard and one or two of his contemporaries, had the opportunities and facilities afforded them of becoming learned men. Arithmetic was confined to the lowest class, and no time was given to mathematics or history, which latter fact was some- times alluded to by Lingard in his after life. It was believed that the classic authors were the best means of developing intelligence, and that grammar and prose compositions afforded sufficient training in accuracy.* The solid grounding in Latin as practised at Douay, was to be continually inculcated by him, when advising as to the course of studies to be pursued in the newly established colleges in England. Young Lingard passed through the course of " Humanities " with distinction, heading his school on all occasions, and mastering every difficulty that pre- sented itself in the course of his studies, in the words of his biographer Tiemey, " with a perception almost intuitive." His modesty is specially commented on by both Tiemey and Walker. " His modesty was extra- ordinary; praise was to him like the sense of physical pain, and those who had once seen how he was thus, affected, never repeated it." He was eighteen years of age when he passed out of " rhetoric," and then under- took to read all the ancient authors iof Greek and Roman history in the originals. This task he accomplished, and at the same time carried on the study of Hebrew. On the 3rd of June, 1790, Lingard took the oath A minute account of the daily routine at Douay may be found in Burton's Life of Challoner, Vol. I, p. 16 seq. TAKES THE OATH 31 of the alumnus in company with three other " divines," John Baines, John Bowling, and Francis Rowland, the first of whom, the future bishop, was to remain his intimate friend and ally.* The " College Oath " prescribed by the constitu- tions of the college, and confirmed by the Holy See in the year 1 600, no longer carried with it the potentiality of martyrdom; but it was nevertheless one of the most solemn and significant acts of the candidate for the priesthood, and was preceded by a " retreat " of eight or ten days, spent in prayer and spiritual exercises. Then, kneeling before the president, and in presence of one or two of the professors, the student pronounced his vow : "I, , an Alumnus of the English College at Douay, considering the divine benefits which I have re- ceived, particularly that which has led me from my country now afflicted with heresy, and which has made me a member of His Catholic Church, desiring moreover to show myself not altogether unmindful of such great mercy of God, have resolved to offer myself to His Divine ser- vice, so far as I am able for furthering the end of this College; and I promise and swear before Almighty God that I am ready, and will be ever ready, so far as His most holy Grace shall help me, to receive Holy Orders in due time, and to return to England in order to gain the souls of others as often and when it shall seem good to the Superior of this College so to command. In the meantime while I dwell here, I promise to live peaceably * The ties remained close between the men of Douay. In a letter to Dr. Lingard from the distinguished scholar Thomas White, of St. Peter's, Winchester, written October 7th, 1828, he closes his recollections of some of their contemporaries of "near three-and-thirty years ago " with the words : " O happy days ! It is with feelings sometimes of satisfaction, sometimes of regret and pain, that I recall the days that are gone, the days and years spent in a foreign land, yet educated with all the national prejudices of English- men ! I must close my letter and interrupt a. reverie into which I was just beginning to drop, and ye tears began to wet my eyelids. " 32 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD and quietly, and manfully to obey the constitutions and rules of the College." President Gibson, in announcing to Monsignor Christopher Stonorj the English agent in Rome, that Lingard had taken the oath, describes him as " Juvenis utidequaqiw optimcB spei, Ingenio, Studio, ^ei Pietate pariter commetidabilis." * Although only twenty years of age, Lingard was appointed a minor professor, and taught the school, in college phrasie called " grammar," during the scholastic year of I79i.f In the month of October of that year he entered the school of theology, but he was not destined to finish the course at Douay. The very date of 1791 carries with it its own tale of upheaval and revolt. The great Revolution was two years old; Mirabeau, who alone might have kept a restraining hand on the powers he had evoked, was dead, and the King of France was a prisoner; the dykes and barriers had been destroyed and overthrown, letting the ensanguined floods of anarchy spread wider every hour, obliterating the ancient landmarks. iWe do not know at what moment the authorities of the English College began to be apprehensive of its safety, and of that of the young men committed to their care. An English ambassador was still in Paris, and the Treaty of Commerce provided for the protection pf British subjects. The National Assembly had no desire to provoke the interference of England, but [the passions let loose were rapidly getting "beyond control. In Douay itself the increasing violence of the demo- cratical party was causing alarm. During the pre- vious year the garrison of the town had twice broken * Apud Stonor's Agency, p. 407. + The classical masters at Douay were chosen from the students of theology, and were termed "minores," to distinguish them from the "professores seniores." The same system holds to some extent at Ushaw and other Catholic colleges to-day. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 33 out, the excesses of the soldiery had more than once intruded within the walls of the CoUege, blood had begun to flow in the market-place, and peaceable citi- zens were being hurried to the gibbet by an infuriated rabble. This was the ominous state of things while John Lingard was making his r&treat before taking the college oath on the 3rd June, 1790, — a strange sitxmtion for one who had fled from oppression and disabilities at home, and was thus closing ten peace- ful and happy years of study and religious liberty. A few days after taking the oath he was in peril of his life. He had ventured into the town at the moment when the populace, with frantic yells, were dragging a. Monsieur Derbaix to execution. Lingard knew, him, and could not refrain from approaching the crowd to inquire into the cause of such proceedings,— with what faint hope of being useful to the victim we know not. But his college dress at once attracted the notice of the rabble; the cry of "la calotte," and then of " le calotin k la lanterne " was raised, and it was only by his fleetness of foot that he was able to escape the fury of his pursuers. Nevertheless the routine of life still continued its normal course. Lingard, as we have seen, entered on the course of theology in October, 1791, and it was not until after the execution of Louis XVI, on the 2 1st Jantiary, 1793, and the declaration of war by England, on the ist February, that danger became acute. Meanwhile, president Gibson had been recalled to England to be made Bishop and Vicar-Apostolic of the Northern District at the end of 1790, and the Rev. John Daniel — Douay's last president— had suc- ceeded him. The eldest son of Lord Stourton* was * Hon. William Joseph Stourton, born 1776, eldest son of Chas. Philip, Beventeenth Lord Stourton. ST. MARY OF THE LAKE SEMINARY LIBRARY NILES 34 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD among tKe lay students at the College, and it was decided that John Lingard should accompany him to England, together with two other youths of the name of Oliviera. The return was in reality a perilous flight, of which it is to be regretted that we have no, account from Lingard's own pen. The small party left Douay on the 2ist February, 1793, two days after the commissaires of the district had taken possession of the College. A friendly warning, as was so often the case, had been sent to the inmates a few hours before the arrival of the commissioners with their escort of National Guards, — an interval which had sufficed fbr the hasty concealment of some of the treasures, and of a part of the college plate.* A letter written the very day of Lingard's departure gives the following account of the events of the i8th of February: ". . . They arrived soon after, and summoned the president and some others into the parlour. There an apostate priest and monk of Marchiennes, as a member of the district, read over a warrant which authorised them to impose the national seals upon the goods and papers of the College, as also those of the superiors. On leaving the parlour, the guards dispersed themselves in different galleries, some few excepted, who attended the com- missaries in the different places where they laid the seals. The guards in general formed a despicable collection — they were seemingly the scum of the town; the commis- saries were equally unknown to us. The places on which the seals are to be seen are the president's and procurator's chests and papers, the divines' library, the curiosity room, the street doors of the bake-house, infirmary and church. The sacristy was left untouched, the refectory plate in part was seen, but nothing taken. We are, indeed, appre- hensive that when they come to erase the seals, an entire * Account by the Rev. Joseph Hodgson, vice-president of Douay College. ESCAPE FROM DOUAV 35 inventory of our goods will be taken, after which term they will be said to be no more at our disposal. . . . There is no one amongst us who discovers reason for hope, but I suppose we shall linger on a month or two longer. . . . We have two or three guards in the house since Monday last, the most ill-looking fellows you ever saw, so that we are obliged to have one or two to sit up to guard them." There were not many persons in the College at the time. Many parents had already recalled their sons to England, and we may easily believe that youngi Lingard played an active part in the " guarding of the guard," mentioned in the above letter.* Two days later, Lingard and his three companions left Douay, and, according to a tradition preserved in the Stourton family, they effected their escape from the town by letting themselves down by ropes from the walls — ^an adventure which may not have been without its charm to a party of whom the eldest and leader was twenty-two years old.f Of the route they followed, of their adventures by the way we know nothing; but in due course, probably before the end of February, they safely reached England, and Lingard accompanied William Stourton to his father's house, where Lord Stourton immediately asked tiim to remain as his son's tutor. ' The further events at Douay must be briefly re- corded. The Benedictine, Franciscan, Scots, and Irish Colleges shared the same fate as the English^ — all the British being ordered out of the tovra. President * In 1869, the late Monsignor Searle was allowed by Napoleon III to make excavations for the treasure which had been lying buried for seventy years in the old class-room of "Low Figures." A quantity of silver plate was recovered and brought to England, where it was divided among Ushaw, Old Hall, and Oscott Colleges. t Young Stourton was seventeen years old, the two Olivieras were about the same age. 36 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Daniel obtained permission to remove with those under his care to their country house at Esquerchin, three miles from the town;; but they, were ordered back to the College in the month of October, a few days before its formal seizure and the imprisonment of the president and forty of his subjects in the Scots College. Four days later, i6th October, they were removed to the citadel of DouUens, thirty-six miles from Douay. Within a few months fifteen made their escape in the night by means of ropes; the rest were kept prisoners at DouUens until November, 1794, when they were again carried back to Douay, and incarcerated in the Irish College for a period of three months, when they recovered their freedom and obtained permission to return to England on the 25th February, 1795. The English College had already been turned into a military hospital and storehouse. It was the finest building in the town, and retains to this day the name of " grands Anglais,'" by which it was known to the townsfolk before its dissolution. Douay had accomplished the work prescribed by William AUen in 1568. For more than two centuries she had supplied a constant succession of priests for England, preserving to the last the spirit of her great founder and first sons. Spoliated and denuded, her sons torn from her side and driven into banishment, their habitation silent and deserted, yet was her end in a sense as great as had been her begirming. The banishment of her sons was no true exile now, for their own country, at last relenting, had opened her arms to them once more. The succession of priests was assured in England; Douay's task was over. Her memory was to be bound up in the very heart-strings of her sons, in none more tightly than in John Lin- gar d's, and it was to remain a vivifying and present END OF DOUAY COLLEGE zi power in those English colleges at home which were to spring from her ashes. By a coincidence as dramatic as it Was happy for the members of the old faith, the second Catholic Relief Act, — which made it no longer a penal act for a priest to say Mass publicly in England, — came into force on Friday, June 24th, 1 79 1, the actual anniversary of the day on which, two hundred and thirty-two years before, the celebration of Mass had been prohibited by Queen Elizabeth. CHAPTER III BY the Relief Act of 1778, Catholics might possess land: they could not be ousted out of their pro- perty by their Protestant next-of-kin. The vile trade of the " informer " had been abolished — no man could henceforward earn one hundred pounds by denouncing a priest or a schoolmaster. The Act of 1791 abolished the illegality of catholic worship; it was no longer penal for a priest to say Mass, nor for a layman to hear it. In both instances they paid a price for the justice accorded them: in the first case by their sufferings during the dreadful week of the Gordon riots; in the second, the price for a moment seemed likely to be more disastrous in its consequences, — no less than the risk of a schism amongst themselves. The whole story has so lately been told in full and minute detail by Monsignor Ward, that a brief refer- ence to its chief points is all that is here necessary.* The actual quarrel was over before young Lingard's return to England, but some of its consequences re- mained, and he was at once brought into close contact with many of the most active litigants, — some of whom became his intimate and lifelong friends. The preliminaries to the first Relief Act had seen the formation of a Catholic Committee, composed of a group of young laymen, who were acting in tacit * The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England. (Bernard Ward, 1909.) 38 THE CATHOLIC COMMITTEE 39 ajgreement with the Vicars- Apostolic. The old genera- tion, laymen and clergy, alike, had become so habituated to the atmosphere of retirement consequentl on the active and passive persecution of more than two centuries, thait all they asked for was to be leffl alone. So it was the younger men, with iWilliam^ Sheldon, a lawyer of Gray's Inn, at their head, who took the lead, framed an " oath of allegiance " that satisfied both the ministry and their own bishops, and finally saw their efforts rewarded by the Act of 1778.* The first committee dissolved itself as soon as its work was completed. Four years later a second and larger committee was formed, with Lord Petre, Sir Henry Englefield, and Mr. Throckmorton as its leaders, and Charles Butler as its secretary and general adviser. This remarkable man — in after days one of Lingard's most trusted friends and correspondents — was then in the full vigotir of his manhood. f " A more learned man," writes Monsignor Ward, " and a more per- sistently industrious roan has rarely lived." " The Volumes of his writings are a permanent testi- mony to his unremitting application. . . . Devoutly reli- gious, even Dr. Milner, his unrelenting opponent, admitted that he might with truth be called an ascetic. . . . His extensive learning, both ecclesiastical and secular, was placed at the disposal of the Committee, and his acquaint- ance with the first lawyers of the day enabled him to obtain legal advice of the highest authority, while his per- sonal influence helped him to secure to his party a hearing from men of standing." J Little work of practical moment was done by the second committee. Its principal efforts were directed * See Appendix C. t He was born in 1750, and was the last representative of the ancient family of Butler of Aston-le-Wells, Northamptonshire. He died in 1832. t Ward, Dawn of Catholic Revival, I, 90, 92. 40 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD ' to an endeavour to restore a regular hierarchy to Eng-. land, and with this end in view they, addressed a letter, signed by Lord Stourton and nine other members of committee, to each of the Vicars-Apostolic on May 4th, 1783. Their main object in the agitation was to; remove one pretext for the poptolar prejudice in Eng^ lish minds against Roman influence in England, but this scheme was unpalatable to three out of the four bishops, and for the time it was shelved.* Political parties were in an unsettled state, and thfe committee did little or nothing further, except to pre- sent two memorials to the ministry, and to take the part, on one occasion, of the ex- Jesuits with respect to some property in the North of England, against Bishop Matthew. Gibson.f Three ministries in quick succession — those of Lord Rockingham, Lord Shelburne, and the Duke of Port- land — had followed Lord North's, which had passed the first Catholic Relief Act. In 1783 William' Pitt, at the age of twenty-foxir, succeeded the Duke of Portland, and his ministry was destined to pass the next meastire for catholic relief. Shortly before their five years' term of office expired, the committee issued an address to their fellow- Catholics, which reopened the question of a restoration of the hierarchy in language which sowed the seed of long and bitter controversy: * Dr. James Talbot, vicar-apostolic of the London District, thought "the application superfluous " ; his brother. Dr. Thomas Talbot, regarded the pro- posal as " very useless, but free from reasonable objection " ; while the senior vicar-apostolic. Bishop Walmesley, expressed his strong objection against any change ; and Dr. Matthew Gibson, of the Northern District, was frankly in favour of the scheme. (See Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, Vol. I, p. 98.) t The Society of Jesus had been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in the year 1773. The Jesuits then in England, about a hundred and twenty in number, were allowed to live in community, but as secular priests dependent on the bishops instead of on their own provincial. BITTER CONTROVERSY, 41 " They (the vicars apostolic) are appointed by the Court of Rome, without any election by the clergy or laity. . , , This necessarily creates an appearance of dependence on the Court of Rome, which is generally represented to be much greater than it really is. But we beg leave to observe, that the ecclesiastical government by Vicars Apostolic is by no means essential to our re- ligion, and that it is not only contrary to the primitive practice of the Church, but is in direct opposition to the statutes of prcemunire and provisors, enacted in times when the Catholic was the established religion of the country.* . . . Your Committee doubt not but that you will concur with them in thinking that it is incumbent on us to use our endeavours to procure the nomination of Bishops-in-ordinary . Your Committee think it would be needless to point out to you the advantages which would result from having pastors thus chosen by the flock they are to teach and direct, and in conjunction with which they would be com- petent to regulate every part of the National Church discipline. . . ." Whatever may have been the practice in the primi- tive Church, the claim of the committee that in the eighteenth century, the laity should have a voice in the election of bishops, and act " in conjunction " with them to regulate the affairs of the diocese was startling, and might be said to savour of Gallicanism. The promulgation of the address was immediately followed by the dissolution of the committee, but it was not allowed to pass unchallenged. A third Catholic Com- mittee came into being in May, 1787, with Lord Petre as chairman, and to it the bishops addressed the re- monstrances which occurred to them;: Dr. Thomas * The enactments of prcemunire and provisors were directed against the power of nomination and of temporal jurisdiction exercised by the Roman curia in England. They were first passed in 1351 and 1353, and re-enacted in 1390 and 1393. 42 LIFE OF, JOHN LINGARD Talbot ending a letter to Charles Butler, who had been re-elected secretary, as follows: ". . . Now Mr. Talbot, cum bona venia, cannot for- bear to add that he did not know that the Catholic Com- mittee was established to sit as a Court of Judicature, to take cognisance of high crimes and misdemeanours, or to arraign Bishops before their tribunal, and perhaps to permit them to exercise their functions quamdiu se bene gesserint."* However eagerly they might pursue their ends, the members of the committee had no desire to affront their bishops ; and after receiving the above letter, and similar ones from the other three vicars-apostolic, Lord Petre, at a meeting held in February, 1788, made a formal declaration, as chairman, that there should be no interference with spiritual matters without the concurrence of the bishops. The peace-loving James Talbot hoped, as he wrote to Dr. Walmesley, that the subject might drop, and matters " go on in the old track, which has succeeded so well for the last hundred years ": " We have less connection with Hilton as Apostolic Vicars than our Irish neighbours as Ordinaries ;f and some connection there must be as long as we are allowed to profess the old faith, for which so many of our ances- tors have bled and died. . . . And as to taking the con- firmation of Bishops out of the hands of Hilton, and putting it in our Government, I wonder such a vagary could ever enter a head that pretends to be Catholic." Dr. Talbot had consulted his most trusted advisers, and he concludes : " It appeared to us that the greater part of the country Gentlemen were adverse to the very existence of a Com- * Westminster Archives. (Ward, Vol. I, p. 112.) t Although the necessity no longer existed, the practice of designating Rome as " Hilton " (Hill Town) still prevailed in England. BISHOP JAMES TALBOT 43 mittee, and a still greater part to their meddling with Church affairs, and therefore we concluded the whole business would drop before the time appointed for sending our answers to the question about Ordinaries." * Bishop Talbot and his advisers were right in believ- ing that the country gentlemen of the old faith were not generally in favour of the committee's proceedings. A numerously signed protest was sent to that body by the representatives of the chief families of the North, — Haggerston, Maire, Silvertop, de Trafiford, Ga:ge, Con- stable, Vavasour, Tempest, etc. etc. — declaring they were satisfied with' the resolution to co-operate with the vicars-apostolic for the establishment of bishops-in- ordinary; but they were of opinion that the laity ought not to be judges in such business, and they " would be dissentient from any step to forward the proposed alteration that has not received the full sanction of our present Bishops." The committee's reply was to invite Bishop James Talbot, Vicar-Apostolic of the London District, and two other ecclesiastics — Bishop Charles Berington and the Rev. Joseph Wilkes, a Benedictine, to join their body.f Dr. Talbot's motive in joining the committee was evidently the hope of exercising a restraining influence * Ward, Vol. I, p. 115. t Charles Berington {1748-1798) was appointed coadjutor to Dr. Thomas Talbot, of the Midland District, at the early age of thirty-eight. Milner describes him as "an unambitious, sweet-tempered prelate, of strong natural parts, and qualified for the highest station in the Church, had he been resolved to support her necessary authority against the prevailing encroachments and aberrations of powerful laymen." (Sup. Mem., I, p. 72.) The Rev. Joseph Wilkes was a Benedictine of the community of St. Edmund, Paris. He was Chaplain for some time to Mr. Fitzherbert at Swynnerton, and is thus described by Dr. Kirk, in a letter written in 1786 : " You will hardly find his equal in learning. He is really universal, and so pleasant in conversing that every one is enchanted that hears him. His abilities are universally acknowledged. ..." Mr. Wilkes was living at Bath in 1788, when he was chosen a member of the Catholic Committee. 44 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD upon their proceedings; while the inclusion of his name could not but add weight to their acts.* When a deputation from the committee, consisting of Lord Petre, Sir Henry, Englefield, and Mr. Fermor, waited upon Mr. Pitt to urge the passing of a further Relief Bill, he approved of their object, but told them; it would be necessary to give authentic evidence p£ the opinion of the Catholic clergy and universities with respect to the existence or extent of the Pope's dis- pensing power. Formal questions were therefore sent by the committee to the universities of the Sorbonne, Louvain, Douay, Alcala, VaUadolid, and Salamanca, as six great typical faculties, who unanimously an- swered that the tenets attributed by English Protes- tants to their Catholic fellow-coimtrymen formed no part of Catholic doctrine. f Lord Stanhope, who was in charge of a Bill to give relief to Nonconformists of the Established Church, then proposed that Roman Catholics should solemnly disclaim some of the tenets falsely imputed to them, and with this object, after careful perusal of some of the best catholic writers, and consultation with some of the leading men of all other parties — ^but without the slightest communication with any Roman Catholics — he framdd a protestation, which he transmitted to Lord * Bishop Matthew Gibson wrote to Dr. Talbot : " I shall congratulate both you and the public on your late promotion, when I see you prevent any mischief in that station. I don't controvert your inclination, but power." (Westminster Archives, Ward, Vol. I, p. 122.) 4 + The nature of the questions can be gathered from the answers oT the universities : — I. " That the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of the Church of Rome, has not nor have any civil authority, power, jurisdic- tion, or pre-eminence whatsoever within the realm of England. II. That the Pope or Cardinals . . . can not absolve or dispense his Majesty's subjects from their Oath of Allegiance upon any pretext whatso- ever. III. That there is no principle in the tenets of the Catholic Faith by which Catholics are justified in not keeping faith with heretics ... in any transaction either of a public or of a private nature." THE "PROTESTATION" 45 Petre, recommending that it should be generally signed. The document^ drawn up by a Protestant and loosely worded, was open to more than one objection, — the chief of which might be levied against the statement " We acknowledge no infallibility in the Pope," and the strength of the language " We do reject, abhor, and detest ... as execrable and impious " the so-called " Deposing Power " of the Pope. The first,— although we find by some subsequent statements of the com- mittee that they confused infallibility with impecca- bility, — was not defined as an article of faith, and could justly be disclaimed as suchj but the dogma was commonly held in Rome, as it always had been by many theologians, and an open declaration against it was naturally considered offensive. With regard to the second, in view of the action of the popes at different times, and of the opinions still held on the subject in Rome, the language was wanting in respect to the Holy See.* The objections of the bishops were met by a solemn declaration, handed to the vicar-general of the London District by Dr. Berington and Charles Butler, that Lord Stanhope had unequivocally asserted that no article in the protestation meant to convey that Catholics should deny the spiritual authority of the Church or its pastor. It was, in fact, subsequently signed by the four Vicars-Apostolic, and by 1500 Catholics, of whom 240 were priests. • There can, of course, be no doubt that the "Deposing Doctrine" had been held in some form, and was still held by many Roman theologians, though there was some difference of opinion as to the origin of the right claimed, whether by Divine or Ecclesiastical law, or simply by the tacit con- sent of the Catholic powers. All admitted that it could only be used where the nation in question was Catholic, and that the time for its use had passed away. (See Letters of Cardinal AUen. Hist. Introd., p. 36, Ward, Vol. I, p. 144 f-n.) 46 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD The protestation was sent to Mr. Pitt, and recast in the form of a petition, signed only by the thirteen members of the Catholic Committee, before it was pre- sented to Parliament; the petitioners were therein de- scribed as the " Catholic Dissenters of England." The appellation was adopted by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Thurlow), who would not admit a petition from " Eng- lish Catholics." The name "papist " was odious, and dangerous after the events of 1780, and the other was considered perfectly synonymous with that of catholic when explained, and was not likely to raise any noise among the lower classes of the people.* The new title, which was subsequently enlarged to that of Protesting Catholic Dissenters, gave great offence. In vain did Charles Butler, with legal pre- cision, explain that as the words accurately described the position of Catholics towards the Established Church they could not be improper, — that the title had been devised by the government, and not by the com- mittee, — and finally: "As to the notion that if the Oath formed on the protestation had been adopted, we should have lost our venerable appellation of ' Catholics,' and henceforth been called ' Protesting Catholic Dissenters,' the writer begs to say that it is altogether groundless : we should no more have lost the appellation of ' Catholics ' in consequence of the new law's calling us ' Protesting Catholic Dissen- ters ' than we lost the appellation of Catholics in conse- quence of the old law's calling us Papists." f He pleaded in vain: it was a question of sentiment, to which the French saying applied: " Le coeur a des raisons, que la raison ne connait pas " — and we can sympathise with the men who felt it unendurable that * Marginal note in a pamphlet belonging to Dr. Kirk. Oscott Library t Butler, Hist. Memoir, IV, p. 6l. THE "DEPOSING POWER" 47 after suffering two centuries of persecution, they should be supposed to consent at last to the appellation of Protesting Catholic Dissenter. The protestation was embodied — again at the suggestion of the government — in a new oath, on the plea that fresh benefits should be coupled with fresh protestations of loyalty and allegiance. As the protestation was declared to con- tain nothing more than the oath of 1778, so the new oath was said to hold nothing which the protestation had not set forth. Both statements were inaccurate: the oath of 1778 said nothing about papal infalli- bility, and its declaration on the " deposing power " merely stated that it was no part of the Catholic faith. So also the new oath went beyond the protestation in coupling the words " murdered " with' " deposed," as though the two thingis stood on the same footing ; and it appeared designed to make the new oath accord as nearly as possible with' the " Oath of Supremacy " by inserting almost the same words as the celebrated " Oath of Allegiance " of James I, which had been repeatedly condemned by the Holy See. Another and more serious danger was the introduc- tion of a definite classification among Catholics, by which all who took the new oath were to be known as Protesting Catholic Dissenters, while those who should refuse it — " mere non-entities, we hope," wrote the committee — were to " continue victims to the laws en- acted against all communicants with the See of Rome indiscriminately, and to the animosities which give rise to them." * Thus was the apple of discord thrown among their co-religionists by, a committee of men of the highest character and integrity, who claimed, — and rightly claimed, — ^to be second to none in devotion to their * First Blue Book of the Catholic Committee, p. 4. 48 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD religion. They would one and all have endorsed Charles Butler's words with respect to the new oath : " If (it) contains anything contrary to faith or to the word of God, there cannot be a question but that it must be altered in every particular in which upon this account it is objectionable." Controversy began to rage hotly as soon as [the proposed new oath was made public, and, needless to say, it was unanimously condemned by the four Vicars- Apostolic and their two coadjutor Bishops, in a meet- ing held for the ptirpose of considering its terms, at Dr. James Talbot's house at Hammersmith in the month of October, 1789. The committee therefore made certain alterations in the oath, which did not, however, satisfy the prelates, and a war of pamiphlets ensued, during which both parties began to lose their temper. The charitable, peace-loving Jamies Talbot died in January, 1790, and his brother. Bishop Thomas Talbot, was elected to replace him on the committee.* Bishop Matthew Gibson died the following May, and was suc- ceeded as vicar-apostolic of the Northern District by his brother William, president of the English College, Douay. The Rev. James Douglass of York succeeded * He was known as "the good Bishop Talbot." In preaching his obituary sermon, Mr. Milner said : "You know well that while his heart and his hands were inexhaustibly open to every call of charity and piety, hardly would he allow himself the decencies and necessities of life ... he refused to spend on himself what he lavished upon others." Monsignor Stonor, writing to him on the occasion of the death of his brother. Lord Shrewsbury, under whose will he benefited, remarked : " As to your increase of property on this occasion, it is with the public that I chiefly rejoice, persuaded as I am that they will be the principal gainers by it." His difficulties with the Catholic Committee so dispirited him, that more than once he was on the point of resigning his see. President Gibson wrote to him from Douay to dissuade him. " I should be sorry to hear that you had any thoughts of resigning, particularly during the present difficulties that seem to be raised among some of our Catholic Gentlemen. I fear, but heartily wish they may end well." (Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, Vol. I, p. 251.) A JOINT ENCYCLICAL' 49 to the London vicariate, and diligently laboured to restore harmony between the bishops and the com- mittee. He was ready, unlike his predecessor, to join Drs. Walmesley and Gibson in a second condemnation of the oath, notwithstanding the modifications it had received. Bishop Thomas Talbot refrained: he thought a fresh condemnation would neither assuage conten- tions and animosities, nor stop the progress of the Bill. " Propose a conciliatory scheme," he wrote to Dr. Walmesley, the senior Vicar- Apostolic, " and your lord- ship will find a joint concurrent in your obedient ser- vant, Thomas Talbot." Time passed, the introduction of the bill was ex- pected within two or three weeks, and a high pitch of excitement was reached, during which Bishop Walmes- ley was led to accuse the committee of an attempt to " injure religion," while Bishop Gibson talked of their "infernal stratagems." The committee replied to the joint Encyclical of the three bishops in a letter to Dr. Douglass, drawn up by Charles Butler, in which, in studiously respectful language, they refused to submit to its requisitions. It was signed by the two eccle- siastical members. Bishop Berington and the Rev. Joseph Wilkes, by Lords Stourton and Petre, and four other members of the committee; it ended with an important postscript: " Notwithstanding this declaration, we still request your Lordships to say whether you will suggest any addition or qualifying explanation, which can be admitted consist- ently with the Instrument of Protestation signed by the Vicars Apostolic and more than 200 of the clergy and almost every respectable Catholic in England, and we will exert our best endeavours in negotiating the admission of such an addition or qualifying expression." * * Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, Vol. I, p. 251. 50 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Further attemipts to bring about a compromise merely served to elicit a further " Manifesto and Ap- peal " drawn up by the Rev. Joseph Wilkes, which toi strength of language exceeded all the previous letters of the committee. It began with' an unequivocal pro- fession of Catholic faith, and ended, after a statement of their various contentions, with a solemn appeal to all the Catholic churches in the universe, " and especially to the first of Catholic churches, the Apos- tolic See, rightly informed." The bishops were in a difficult position: they were convinced that the proposed oath was inadmissible, and would be condemned at Rome ; on the other hand, the men whom' they felt called upon to censure were of those who were rightly esteemed thte very backbone of Catholicity in England. The chapels in their country houses, their houses in town, were the centres of religion, their tenants and dependents almost the only Catholics in the rural districts ; the very existence of the Church was mainly due to them, for they sup- ported priests and missions. The bishops and their supporters — one of the staunchest of whom was Mr. Weld, of Lulworth Castle — ^strained every nerve to procure that either the oath of 1778, the " Irish Oath " of 1774, or one which the prelates had themselves drawn up, might be substituted for the new one. Applications were made to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, to Lord Grenville, and Mr. Windham; and Mr. Weld came purposely to London to wait upon Mr. Pitt, who very favourably received his remonstrances against the bill. On the other hand, Edmund Burke, Sir Archibald MacDonald, Attorney-General, and Mr. Mitford, after- wards Lord Redesdale, who was in charge of the bill, did not cease to urge the importance of avoiding aU DK. HORSLEY, BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S 51 sign of disunion among the Catholic body. On the eve of the introduction of the motion, Drs. Douglass and Gibson, therefore, met the committee in a last attempt to procure harmony; but although the meeting was cordial, it served no other end than thkt of bring- ing the bishops and the committee together. Dogged Englishmen every one, they were passionately deter- mined to maintain their own rights, even when face to face with a crisis of which they now fully saw the danger.* The prelates became dissatisfied with their own oath, and suggested various improvements, until Mr. Mitford finally refused to bring in the bill unless the original oath' remained imaltered, and wrote a strongly worded protest to Bishop Douglass to that effect. The bill passed the House of Commons on the ;2oth April, by. which time Bishop Douglass had become converted to Dr. Talbot's opinion that the " Oath was so far amended that it might be taken without injuring faith or truth " — a view supported by all the Irish bishops — though the several clauses were expressed "in terms very inaccurate and untheological." The vicars-apostolic were thus equally divided for and against the bill, and Drs. Gibson and Walmesley were left to do battle alone. The latter wrote to Dr. Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, entreating him to oppose the bill in the House of Lords, and Dr. Hors- ley, Bishop of St. David's, was approached by Dr. Douglass with a request for assistance in the crisis: this he gave with an effect equally unexpected by both friends and foes. In a remarkable speech, by which Charles Butler, who was present at the debate, in his own words " was thunderstruck," he set forth in plain language the * Dr. Walmesley was unable to leave Bath, and Dr. Thomas Talbot still refrained from acting with the other vicars-apostolic. 52 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD dissensions which had arisen among the Cathohcs on the subject; declared that the oath was bad, and such as he would himself, as a Protestant, refuse to sweajr, and expressed his regret that the legislature was not content with the oath of 1778. Finally, when the House went into Committee, Dr. Horsley boldly pro- posed the substitution of the Irish oath, which was forthwith accepted.* Naturally, both parties claimed the victory : the com- mittee had got their bill, while the bishops had suc- ceeded on the question of the oath; but during the contest incidents had occiorred which intensified the bitterness of feeling betwieen the Catholics represented by the committee and the vicars-apostolic. Although the recital of their disputes by a Protestant bishop could not but fill them with shame, it unfortunately had not the power to allay the irritation which was to subsist for many a long year to come. It was Dr. James Talbot, whose love of peace was said by some to border upon weakness, who unwit- tingly threw a firebrand into the mllee when he invited Mr. James Milner, the priest of Winchester, to join the meeting of bishops at Hammersmith in October, 1789. That remarkable man has been described as having " a naturally orthodox mind," quick to discern the faintest and most remote deviation from the strictest rules of dogma or practice. Controversy was as the breath of his nostrils, and at a time when polemical; writers appeared to think it incumbent upon them to prove their own zeal by speaking slightingly of their opponents, he went beyond them all in his methods of damaging the character of his adversaries. f * See Appendix D. t The most flagrant example was his accusation that Charles Butler had substituted a. copy in place of the original when he lodged the MS, of the MILNER AND CHARLES BUTLER 53 Controversialist, antiquary— he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1790 — ^historian, archi- tect, and indefatigable parish priest, he appeared to be endowed with an almost unlimited capacity for work, while the border-line between genius and mad- ness was, in Milner's case, rendered the fainter that his father had long since passed beyond it.* It may therefore be said that his great good quali- ties were his own, and his exaggerations, eccentricities, and the vehemence, not to say violence, of his preju- dices and some of his utterances were part of his: inheritance; the style of his polemical writings in the Orthodox Journal, founded 1 8 1 3, at last bringing down upon him a formal prohibition from the Holy See to continue them. " Protestation " in the British Museum by direction of the Catholic Committee. Because the printed copies sent out for signature showed some sHght dis- crepancies with the parchment — such as having Arabic numerals instead of Roman, and that two signatures appeared on the latter and not on the other — he contended that the original had been lost, and that Butler had sub- stituted a new copy. Neither the absurdity of the charge nor the solemn denial of Butler and his head clerk could prevent Mr. Milner and his col- league in the attack, Mr. Charles Plowden, an ex-Jesuit, from their attempt to damage their adversary's character. The terms "spurious copy," "false instrument," "forgery," and other such titles frequently appear in Milner's subsequent writings, and although he withdrew the charge a few years later in Letters to a Prebendary (4th edition, p. 455), he repeated it with vehem- ence in an Appendix to his Supplementary Memoirs twenty years afterwards. In May, 1797, Charles Butler wrote to Bishop Walmesley : " As to what Mr. Milner and Mr. Charles Plowden have written on the subject of the alteration to the Protestation, permit me to assure your Lordship all and every thing they have said on it is untrue. I am very willing to give credit to the uprightness of their intentions, and to think that they themselves believe what they write : yet let me say that many years will not elapse before they and I shall appear in judgment before God, and they will find that in this respect they have propagated against me an absolute falsehood. But from my soul I pardon them both." (Ward, Vol. II, p. 161.) * See Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner, p. 5. The name was originally Miller, and the change to Milner was probably adopted on account of his father's unfortunate malady. Milner had a taste for changing names : one of his priests was called Solomon Strongith'arm, whom he persuaded to change his name to Lawrence, but failed to induce to alter Strongith'arm to Arm- strong. In the case of Dr. Weedall, he insisted that the name should be Udall, and frequently called him so. 54 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Meanwhile, there can be no doubt of the greatness of his services to the caiise of religion, in doing battJe on the side of the bishops during the crisis we have just described, although the three vicars-apostolic found it necessary to throw upon him the responsibility for the measxires and the language he had employed as their agent. He fastened upon Charles Butler as the chief and most capable member of the committee, and the foeman best worthy of his steel — ^pursuing him henceforward with imrelenting energy. When young Lingai^d, fresh fron; the seclusion of his student life, and the perils of his escape from' Douay, arrived in England, he found himself, as a member of Lord Stoiurton's household, in the very centre of Catholic affairs. The Catholic Committee was dissolved, and Stourton had declined to join the Cis- alpine Club which sprang from its ashes, and was to endirre for nearly forty years. But although, together with Bishops Thomas Talbot and Berington and Mr. Fermor, he declined to join a club, the name of which was calcToJated to give umbrage to the vdtramontanes. Lord Stoxirton remained one of the leaders of the party represented by the late committee, and at his house in London, Lingard, eager, intelligent and receptive, im- bibed his first notions of Catholic politics, and made the acquaintance of Charles Butler, which was to ripen into close and intimate friendship and correspondence, despite the disparity of years, — Lingard being twenty- two and Butler approaching forty years of age. The yoxmger man's remarkable gifts were as attractive to Butler as his own ripe talents and learning made him an object of admiration to the other. It was the last decade of the eighteenth century, when the art of conversation, like that of letter-writing, was still at its height, and nien thought it no waste of time to spend' THE ELDER LINGARD 55 four or five hours in good talk; and Lingard doubtless had the delight of coming into contact with such men as Edmund Burke, the staunch supporter of the Catholics, Charles Butler's personal friend and a guest at his table. We may assume that it was diu-ing the Easter holi- days of 1793 that Lingard went to Winchester to see his parents, after an absence of more than ten years. Mrs. Lingard's happiness may be imagined to see her son, who had left her as a boy, returned with all the promises of childhood fulfilled: the gifts in which his parents had rejoiced developed into the fairest fruits, the light in his merry eyes not dimmed, but heightened, and his vocation to the priesthood confirmed. Things had gone well with the elder Lingard; his trade had flourished, and he was what would now be called a " builder and contractor," and was then known as " undertaker." His account, in good clear htodwriting not unlike his son's, " of work done, beginning the 26th of March, 1792, to 8th December, 1792, as performed by John Lingard, taking down old chapel at St. Peter's House, and rebuilding new," is still pre- served in the archives of St. Peter's. Within a few months of the passing of the second Relief Act, making the public performance of Catholic rites legal in England, Milner, with characteristic energy, had set about building a new chapel, not only one of the earliest in date, but actually the first in the Gothic style of architecture to be built in England since pre-Reformation days.* The modesty of its * The cost of the new chapel was something over ;^iooo. In the matter of ecclesiastical art Milner was ahead of his time, and some of his exquisite architectural drawings for the new chapel are still preserved at St. Peter's. Besides devoting a considerable space in his History of Winchester to a con- sideration of the subject, h6 wrote two short works on architecture, one being ■A criticism of the so-called "restoration" of Salisbury Cathedral, by Mr. 56 LIFE OE JOHN LINGARD dimensions— the total length outside only 75 feet, and the height to the top of the crockelted pinnacles 35— did not prevent the new chapel, by the novelty of its archi- tecture and the delicate freshness of its paint and gilding, from producing, in Milner's own words, " a certain degree of pleasing and awful sensation " upon many of those who entered it for the first time. It is possible that some disagreement arose between Milner and the elder Lingard over the building ac- counts, for Husenbeth mentions " inattention of the workmen " as well as " considerations of economy " as reasons why the original plans had not been ad- hered to. This may have been the beginning of Milner's long-continued ill-will.* Young Lingard on his return to Winchester not only found the poor shed in which, behind locked doors, he had worshipped as a child, transformed into a beautiful chapel, free and open, but greater transformation still, tlie " King's House," which he had left full of French prisoners of war, now occupied by more than six hun- dred French priests, the honoured guests of the English government and people. Neither Relief Acts of Par- liament, nor the growing enlightenment of civilisation, the general good conduct of the Catholics, nor |the kindlier feelings of the Protestants could have accom- plished that which was wrought with startling sudden- ness when divine charity — greatest of all virtues — began to lay, a healing balm upon the ancient woimds, and James Wyatt, an act of vandalism on which Pugin commented so severely. By a curious coincidence Milner by chance met Mr. John Carter — the only architect of the day who professed to have made a study of Gothic — in Win- chester Cathedral. They became fast friends. Carter reduced Milner's plans to a more correct order, and was eventually received into the Catholic Church by him. (Ward, Vol. I, pp. 309, 3:0 ; Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner.) * Twenty-seven years later (iSth December, l8ig), Lingard wrote to his friend, Dr. John Kirk, of Lichfield : "For some reason or other he (Milner) persecuted my father till his death, and since he has persecuted me." THE FRENCH EMIGRES 57, called out all that was noblest in the English chiiracter. The horrors of the French Revolution had struck the people of England to the heart, and when the exiles arrived, Protestants vied with Catholics in rendering them help and comfort. With hardly an exception, the country and town houses of wealthy Catholics were thrown open to them, and the poor, as Charles Butler testifies, " broke their bread with them, and shared in all their abjection and want." Among those whose names have appeared on these pages. Lord Stourton gave up his house in Yorkshire, Holme Hall, near Market Weighton, to the English nuns from Lifege*; Mr. Weld established the Trap- pists at Lulworth, and Charles Butler not only spent himself in doing good service to the exiles generally,! but, like a practical man, daily received twelve French priests to say Mass in his house, and gave them aJ substantial breakfast afterwards, knowing that it was questionable whether they would have anything further to eat until they came again the following morning, f Mr. Milner found time, while carrying on the building of his new chapel and his vehement war of pattiphletS; with Charles Butler and other members of the ex- committee, to prepare and fiu^nish a chapel in the " King's House " in readiness for the emigre priests,, and to do them an infinity of other services, besides translating and publishing the letter of Monseigneur Frangois de la Marche, Bishop of St. Pol de Leon, to the French refugee priests in England, in which oc-, curred the following passages: " May the God of mercies shower down His choicest blessings on a people who seem chosen by Heaven to vin- * Holme Hall had come into Lord Stourton's possession by his marriage with the Hon. Mary Langdale, sole heir of Marmaduke, fifth and last Lord Langdale. t Ward, Vol. II, p. i6. 58 LIFE OE JOHN LINGARD dicate the violated laws of nature and humanity. ... If our memory could recall the many proofs of benevolence of which we were the objects, what an affecting picture it would present I In the sea-ports, in cities, in villages, in the isles and the capital, what an eagerness to an- ticipate or to relieve our wants I . . . These attentions, this liberality, were not confined to any particular descrip- tion of men, but common to the whole nation ... to the palaces of the rich and the humble cottages of the poor. . . ." The Protestants showed their sympathy by the gen- erous scale of their subscriptions. ; the Marquis of Buck- ingham, late Viceroy, of Ireland, and Mr. Wilmot, a Fellow of the Royal Society, taking the first steps to organise relief by calling a meeting at the Freemason's Tavern on 20th September, 1792, which included Mr. Pitt, the Prime Minister, Edmund Burke, William, Wilberforce, and some thirty other men of standing and influence. Edmund Burke wrote the appeal toi thte English nation issued by the Comrmttee, and in the course of a few weeks the subscriptions amoxmted to: £33,775- When young Lingard went to pay his respects to the inmates of the King's House, he may well have asked himself if he was dreaming ; for he foimd things almost as he had lef!t them at Douay. Under the government of the Eudiste Monsieur Martin, formerly superior of the Grand S^minaire of Lisieux, a quasi- religious community had formed itself, and the religious exercises were kept up with fervour — forms of devo- tion hardly known in England at the time were there in regular practice. The presence of the French clergy had a marked influence upon the English priests. The latter had so lately emerged from bondage that they still had about A NEW, ORDER OF THINGS 59 them the atmosphere of the days of persecution. Joseph Berington, Bishop Thomas Berington's cousin, in his State and Behaviour of English Catholics from the Revoluiton to the year 1788/' says of them: " They are bred up in the persuasion that on coming to England they are to meet with racks and persecution; they land therefore as in an enemy's country, cautious, diffident, and respectful, ... A; priest is seldom seen in the society of Protestants." The practice of saying Mass daily was almost un- known, and it was the French clergy, accustomed to the open practice of all the ceremonies of the Church, who introduced the singing of vespers into England, and who broke down many of the barriers and re- strictions resulting from centuries of persecution. John Lingard was to come to his priesthood in a new order of things. CHAPTER IV AMONG the fugitives from the prison of Doullens, t some found their way to London, where they were hospitably received by Bishop Douglass, and four young divinity, students, belonging by birth to the Northern Province — Thomas Cock, John Rickaby, Thomas Dawson, and Thomas Storey — ^were cared for by Bishop William Gibson, their own former president at Douay, who lodged them at Tudhoe, a small private school, six miles south of Durham, kept by a priest, the Rev. Arthur Storey. Mr. Cock was the first to arrive there, on the 14th March, 1794.* John Lingard was not the man to remain in the luxurious surroundings of a great nobleman's house, when his former companions and pupils were struggling with adverse circumstances in straitened quarters. At his own request — according to the contemporary account of the Rev. John Gillow, or as stated by Tierney, at the invitation of Bishop Gibson — he lost no time in obtaining from Lord Stourton the cancel- ment of his engagement as tutor, and made his way to Tudhoe in the summer of 1794. He was set in authority over the small company, which was joined by another escaped student, John Bradley, and in the month of September, by order of Bishop Gibson, they migrated to Pontop Hall, near Lanchtester, Co. Dur- ham, the missionary residence of the Rev. Thomas * Bishop Douglass accommodated those who applied to him at Old Hall Green, in Hertfordshire, a lay school under the management of a Douay priest, Mr. Potier. 60 LIFE AT CROOK HALL 6i Eyre. This was but a halting-place on the way to Crook Hall, a larger house two miles away, which was to be their home for the next fourteen years. Lingard belonged to the London District as a native of Winchester; and writing more than fifty years later, in 1848, to his friend. Dr. Tate, he could give no other reason for going to Tudhoe than that having seen Dr. Gibson at York — while with Lord Stourton — he supposed that he had made the agreement with him. Mr. Eyre was made president; he was in the forty- sixth year of his age, and a former professor and " general prefect " of Douay; the infant college over which he was appointed numbering seven members by the arrival of Thomas Lupton before the removal from Pontop Hall, which took place on the 1 5th October, 1794- Crook Hall was a deserted mansion of the Bakers of Ellesmore, standing in a bleak and cheerless district ten miles N.N.W. of Durham. It had been in their possession since the year 1640, the house itself having been built about the year 171 6; Dr. Gibson had rented it for the express purpose of a college until a better place could be provided. The house was in- convenient and ill-suited for a college — a plain rect- angxilar block, built of stone in a somewhat severe style, consisting of two storeys and attic, with a small garden round two of its sides. It was in striking contrast to the fine buildings of the Grands Anglais at Douay, and as time went on and the number of inmates increased, they became more and more straightened for room : but the young vice-president (for with' that office — ^though not officially appointed, owing to a doubt as to whether the right vested in the bishop or the president — John Lingard, aged twenty-three, was at once entrusted) and the men under him were of those who make light of 62 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD inconveniences. With the exception of the president, Mr. Eyre, and of Lingard himself, all the fifteen who assembled at Crook before the end of the year 1794, had effected their escape from prison at the peril of their lives. Many, were the tales of adventure recounted among thte little band, of past dangers and privations which made the poverty of Crook Hall appear endur- able — for they were as light-hearted as they were poor, and as studious as they were light-hearted — ^and their sojourn at Crook was ever to be looked back upon with affection by those who had partaken of it. Supplies sometimes ran short, and there was even an occasion when a party, had to be organised for a foraging expedition — which was happily successful — and one of the earlier arrivals wrote: " 'After escaping from Egyptian slavery, we arrived safe at the land of promise. At the same time I wish I could say that it flowed with milk and honey." On the whole, however, the table was good, especially on meagre days, when fish abounded at the price of 2|d. a lb.* In November, the numbers were increased by the arrival of Mr. John Bell, summoned from Minsters- acres, the seat of the Silvertops, to be " general pre- fect," and bringing with him his pupil, young Henry Silvertop, afterwards of Lartington Hall, whose father, George Silvertop, was of Lingard's standing at Douay, and his fast friend through life. The same month saw the arrival, from Old Hall Green, of a smalll contingent of North-country students — Charles Saul, Edward Monk, Richard Thompson, Thomas Penswick, and Thomas Gillow. Bishop Douglass had seen them * Letter from Mr. Saul, one of the superiors. Coal, needless to say, was abundant, and to men unaccustomed to the cheerful blaze of its fires, it OLD HALL GREEN 63 depart from Old Hall with' regret, as his plan had been to make one central college for all England; and when his scheme fell through he wrote to Bishop Walmesley, November loth, 1794: " Bishop Gibson has taken a house in the North, and his Divines left Old Hall Green last week. This untoward circumstance has given me much uneasiness. However, after consultation with my clergy, and such whose advice and friendship can be depended on, we have determined to continue Old Hall Green as the substitute for Douay and to exert ourselves to promote study, piety, etc., there. ... I'm not without hope that the Gentlemen of the North will see their error in leaving us, and will return. brought a sense of well-being which Lingard expressed in a parody of the sixth ode of the Second Book of Horace : Crook Duarensi positum colono. Sit meae sedes utinam senectae Sit modo lasso maris et viarum Militiaeque. Unde sit Parcae prohibent iniquae Te petam claris opibs Peruvi Dulcius, nostro potius canendum Carmine Pontop. Hie vivam, hie aeque moriar mearum Crook nisi partem rapiat dierum, Et precor mea conquiescant Ossa fodinis. May Crook's blest soil and verdant plains Be the retreat of trembling age, When warned by Death's approaching pains To quit the world's tumultuous stage. But if stern fate should this refuse. To thee, O Pontop, let me fly. Before Peru's thy mines I choose, And Carbon's cheerful flame enjoy. Here let me live, here let me die, Or part my days twixt Crook and thee ; And to thy coal-pits then will I My carcase leave a legacy. Written in 1800. 64 LIFp OF JOHN LINGARD that our wishes for union may be fulfilled: at all events, we shall be united in spirit and in doctrine. . . ." * The " Gentlemen of the North " were not inclined to see their error; on the contrary, it for a moment appeared likely that the one general college would be established in the northern province. A printed appeal for funds was issued by the three Vicars-Apostolic, Drs. W,almesley, Gibson, and Douglass, when, at the last moment, the scheme fell to the ground. The members of the Cisalpine Club and other gentlemen had long been anxious to establish a school under a board of governors, who were to make themselves financially responsible for the conduct of the school. Bishop Thomas Talbot was willing that it should be in his, the Midland, District, and a house at Oscott, near Birmingham, was secured. Another reason for abandoning the scheme was the magnificent gift of his estate at Stony hurst, in Lan- cashire, by Mr. Weld, of Lulworth Castle, to the ex- Jesuits upon their expulsion from Lifege, brought about by the successes of the French troops in the Nether- lands; Mr. Stone, the president, arriving at Stonyhurst with some masters and boys on the 17th August, 1794. The natural result of the transplanting of Li^ge Academy to England was that the supporters and ex- pupils of the Jesuits, such as Mr. Weld, Lord Arundell, and Lord Clififord removed their patronage from the proposed foundation in the north. Another circumstance was the intervention of the prime minister, Mr. Pitt, who strongly urged that no new foundation in the London District should be made, lest public opinion might be aroused; whereas, be said in an interview with Dr. Stapleton, ex-president of * Clifton Archives, Vol. VII. CLAIMS TO DISTINCTION 65 St. Omer, if the new college was built at Old Hall, people woxild only regard it as the continuation of an establishment already existing.* Thus it came about that the idea of a great central college was abandoned, and Douay struck root twice on English soil— at Old Hall, which was to flourish' as St. Edmund's CoUege, Ware, and at Crook Hall, subsequently Ushaw. Needless to say, a great part of the furids and aU the possessions of the colleges beyond the sea were temporarily lost, and everything had to be reared up from the foundation; yet this consideration did not dispirit the promoters, happy to see their colleges once again in England, and urged on by the necessity of making provision for the all- important work of Catholic education. Meanwhile at Crook Hall " the daily life," wrote'" John Penswick, " was Douay in all its integrity with this slight difference ... we began the day, on ac- count of the climate, an hour later, viz. at six instead of five." The collegiate exercises were soon in full swing, although pursued under difficulties ; the scarcity of room made lessons clash with each other, the want of books made it necessary for the students to write out the whole of their work before they could study it, and the professors had each to undertake a number of widely different subjects. Thus Lingard, the acting vice-president, taught not only philosophy — moral or natural as the case might be — all the time the college was at Crook Hall, but actdd at the same time as pre- fect of studies, professor of rhetoric and poetry, as well as procurator; and notwithstanding his great modesty, his claims to distinction as a teacher rapidly became known, notably to Mr. Milner, of Winchester. Writing (30th March, 1795) to Bishop Douglass, who * Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, Vol. II, p. 107. F 66 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD had consulted him about the new collegie, he urged the necessity of establishing " a good classical school with masters of first-rate talents," and adds: " If I were to speak at random, I think that Old Hall as such a college, with Mr. Stapleton for President and Procurator, Mr. Coombes for head teacher, and Lingard for assistant . . . would soon be the first Catholic school in the kingdom."* The services of the Church' were carried on in the chapel at Crook " in the strictest manner," wrote Dr. Gillow, subsequently vice-president of Ushaw, " con- sistent with' the limited space and means." The com- munity struggled hard to observe the rubrics under every disadvantage; for penury extended to the sanc- tuary, and it is an historical fact that at one time there was but one cassock in the whole college. Albs would of course hide the deficiency for the ministers at High Mass; but at Vespers the combination of surplice, tail- coat, knee-breeches and grey stockings must have had, at first sight, a somewhat disturbing effect. ^ The music on greater festivals. Dr. Gillow states, was of a very high standard, and unaccompanied. On ordinary Sundays they employed plain chant. The first ordination at Crook took place at the end of the year 1794, when Lingard and James Worswick were ordained deacons, John Bell and Robert Blacoe priiests, and five others, subdeacons. They were all Dotiay men, Blacoe and Worswick having completed their studies there. Lingard was ordained priest by Bishop Gibson at York on the i8th April, 1795. During that year Mr. Daniel and his fellow-prisoners were ireleased from Doullens Castle, and arrived in * Westminster Archives. The Rev. W. H. Coombes, a Douay professor, had effected his escape on the road to Doullens citadel. EX-PRE3IDENT DANIEL 67 London— those belonging tb the Northern Province making their way to Crook, where they brought up the number of Douay refugees to twenty-one. The arrival in England of Mr. Daniel was an event of some importance. He was, as Dr. Lingard points out in the letter to Dr. Tate quoted above, " in law proprietor of all the money in England belonging to Douay. Remember that; it will explain what follows." We must here premise that the scheme had not then been abandoned of one central school, and the late president was natiiraUy eagerly looked for by both North and South to preside over the " New Douay " in England. Bishop Douglass, when appointing Dr. Stapleton — ex-president of the English College of St. Omer — ^president of Old Hall Green, made the proviso that he would resign in favour of Mr. Daniel, should the latter be appointed later on. Bishop Gibson who, it will be remembered, had been president at Douay for more than ten years, was the first to captitre the newly arrived ex-president, and car- ried him from York to Crook HaJl. But his triumph was short-lived: Lingard continues: " He [Mr. Daniel] came with Dr. Gibson. The next day Mr. Eyre resigned. Mr. Daniel was installed presi- dent and Mr. Eyre vice-president. Before the end of the octave [of St. Peter and Paul] Dr. Stapleton, the presi- dent of Old Hall, arrived. He was closeted with Mr. Daniel for hours, and the next day Mr. D. resigned the presidentship, and went away with Dr. Stapleton. What became of Mr. Daniel afterwards, I know not. He did not stay, I think, at Old Hall; ... he yearly paid to Mr. Eyre all the dividends belonging to the northern dis- trict, the capitals of which were in his hands. ... If I am right in calling Dr. Stapleton president of Old Hall, 'A^ill it not follow from the preceding that Crook was the substitute or filiation from Douai, and Old Hall from St. 68 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Omer's, where Dr. S. had been president? At least it may account for our having kept up the Douai rules which they did not." By placing the above incident within the octave of Sts. Peter and Paul (29th June), Lingard, virriting after an interval of fifty-thtee years, misremembered the date, which must have been within the octave of St. John Baptist (24th June) : for there is a letter in the Wesi- minster Archives from Mr. Daniel to Bishop Douglass dated " Crook Hall, June 24th " — ^where he had arrived the previotos day — ^pressing for a revival of the scheme of building one great college at Tudhoe; and another, dated June 2 5th, after his interview with Dr. Stapleton, saying that he wiU be in London before the latter, arrives there. Mr. Daniel was a quiet pieace-loving man, and rather than offend Dr. Gibson, who remained averse to the scheme, he resolutely refused to become president of Old Hall, and retired to Lancashire.* Restored to his own position after this dramatic interlude, John Lingard continued the even tenour of scholastic life, displaying, says Tierney, " those abilities for imparting information and instruction, which so eminently distinguished him through life. With a mind singularly clear and distinct in its perceptions, with a patience and persevieranoe not easy to be dis- comfited, he mastered whatever he attempted himself, and trained his pupils to follow in the sanxe course." In January, 1796, the coUege contained thirty- two inmates, and one of Lingard's pupils — a, future bishop — (William Hogarth or George Brown), writing in after • Immediately after this, whatever doubt remained about the future of Old Hall was set at rest by the munificent gift of ;£'io,ooo by Mr. Sone, a rich miller of Bedhampton, near Havant, which was to be applied either to a general college for all England, or, if so decided, for the college to be built. in the London District. Dr. Douglass at once planned out a large new college to be built at Old Hall, and the work was begun without delay. SKILL AS A TEACHER 69 years to Tiemey, affectionately recalled his master's methods : " I remember that, when I had the good fortune, as a boy, to be Dr. Lingard's pupil, I learned more in one month, than I had done in six, under my former peda- gogue ; * and I also remember that, while he was listen- ing to me translating Latin into English, he was turning over the leaves of a large folio, and making notes for his history, and yet nothing escaped him of what I was read- ing." We have no record of Lingard's visits to his parents, but he had sufficient connection with Winchester to note the increasing importance in ecclesiastical affairs of Mr. Milner, Ithe Tontirinigi pnergy, with .which he prose- cuted his warfare with the Cisalpine Club and Charles Butler, as well as his great and systematic charity.. When the English Benedictine nuns filed from Brussels, and Bishop Douglass established thern in a house oppo- site St. Peter's, Winchester, bequeathed to the district by Bishop James Talbot, it was Milner who imade alterations in the building and constructed a chapel at the top of the house ; he supplied them, with blankets, sending his own bed for the use of some aged mm, while he made the prioress take the Oath of Allegiance, so as to avoid molestations. He advised them to open a school, and by his wide influence soon succeeded in getting them a considerable numbter of pupils, pro- curing the aid of charitable ladies — the Marchioness of Buckingham, Lady Stourton, Lady Clifford, and others, for the furnishing and decoration of the house and chapel, f Milner was also at that time engaged in the pre- * A term used at Douay, and still retained at Ushaw and Old Hall, for a private tutor. t The Benedictine nuns removed to East Bergholt in 1857, where they hold Milner's memory in benediction, and keep his anniversary as that of a great friend and benefactor. 70 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD pao-ation of his greatest work, the History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and Survey of the Antiquities of Win- chester,'' in two quarto voliomes, " which at once estab- lished his fame," says his biographer, Husenbeth, " as an ecclesiologist, historian, architect, and antiquary." The first volume was published in 1798. Lingard, on his side, was prosecuting those historical studies tO| which the bent of his mind had been turned since the days when his mother, in her own words, " was ac- customed to hire books, particularly historical ones, which he seemed eager to peruse." In the winter evenings at Crook Hall, it was the custom for the various members of the college to contribute their share, according to their ability, to the amusement of the others, by reading some original; paper. Lingard's passion for the antiquities of his country had full play in the neighboirrhood of Durham — whence the very stones cried out their messages of the past— of Jarrow and Wearmouth, still fragrant with the memory of the Venerable Bede, of Durham, Hex- ham, Tynemouth, and a hundred other spots rich with the treasures of the past. " In moments snatched' from the various duties of his ofiSce," writes Tierney, " he embodied his thoughts on the subject in a series of detached papers." Seated with his friends around the glowing coal-fires he had praised in Latin song, he read these papers in the evening hours. They treated of the establishment of the faith among the Saxons, of the origin of the monastic institute, of the government of the Church, of the religious practices of the people, of the learning, the literature, and thei laws of Anglo-Saxon times. Tierney, quoting from the records of those present, says : " As the reader advanced, the interest of the audience grew more intense: the extent of his reading and the HISTORICAL STUDIES 71 depth of his research struck them at once with surprise and admiration: and when, at length, the series drew to a close, they united with one accord in urging him to mould the detached parts into a regular form, and pub- lish them as a connected history. For a long time, his diffidence or his modesty withstood the application." Meanwhile, death had been busy in the ranks of the Church in England; and Dr. Thomas Talbot, Vicar- Apostolic of the Midland District, as peace-loving and pious a man as his brother James, died in April, 1795. His coadjutor with right of succession was Bishop Thomas Berington, one of the leading members of the ex- Catholic Committee, whose proceedings had been censured by three of the vicars-apostolic. He was, like his predecessor, a man of charity and a lover of peace, but he had allowed himself to be led into a position which bordered closely on the limits of ortho- doxy. Before sending him his " extraordinary facul- ties " Propaganda therefore called upon him to re- establish his orthodoxy by some kind of retractation. This he made, and his faculties were despatched from Rome, but he was not alive to receive them. Riding- home with his chaplain. Dr. Kirk, on the 8th June, 1798, he was seized with apoplexy, and died in a few minutes.* There had been a rumour that Milner would be appointed coadjutor to Bishop Bering- ton — a rash proposal to place two men of the most op- posite dispositions to govern a district, in which Milner was regarded with so much disfavour by the majority of the clergy that, on Berington's death, thiey sent a memorial to the Pope, begging that Mr. Milner might * The real temper of the man who, in his controversial writings said such hard things to his opponents, and the impersonal nature of the quarrel between them, is illustrated by Milner's tribute to the late prelate : " Endowed with superior talents and the sweetest temper, he wanted the firmness requisite for the episcopal character in these times, to stem the tide of irreligious novelty and lay influence." (Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner, p. 6i.) \ 72 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD not be appointed. The three vicars-apostolic, on the other hand, sent up his name, with those of the presi- dent of Crook Hall, the Rev. Thomas Eyre, and the Rev. Thomas Smith. But the French were in posses- sion of Rome, Pius VI. was a prisoner in their hands, and carried first to Siena, then to Florence, and finally, to Valence on the Rhone, where he died on the 29th August, 1799. The Midland District was consequently left without a bishop for more than two years, during^ which time speculation was no doubt keen at Crook Hall as to whether its president would be raised to the episcopate; and when Lingard went to Winchester he probably found the same atmosphere of expectancy surrounding Mr. Milner. The new Pope was elected by a conclave which met at San Giorgio Maggiore's, Venice, and on the 14th March, 1800, Cardinal Chiaramonti assumed the title of Pius VII. Dr. Stapleton, president pf St. Edmund's College, visited Rome at the time, a fact which resvdted in his appointment as vicar-apostolic of the Midland District.* Propaganda, acting upon the advice of the English bishops, had decided upon recommending Milner to the post, and it was said that his briefs were actually being drawn out when, by the wish of the Pope, a change was made. The first volume of Milner 's History of Winchester had drawn considerable attention by reason of its learn- ing and research;, and through the instrumentality of Sir John Cox Hippesley, a copy was presented to George III, who expressed himself much interested in the work. It drew attention on other grounds also. Milner was ever in the habit of riding full-tilt at his goal, ap- parently heedless of what incidental damage he might * Dr. Stapleton had accompanied Mrs. Fitzherbert's confessor, Mr. John Nassau, to Rome, to submit the case of her marriage with the Prince of Wales to the Pope. Pius VII declared the marriage to be valid. MILNER AND DR. STURGES 73 do in the fury of his charge. His book gave great offence to Protestants, especially a severe attack on Dr. Hoadley, the late well-known latitudinarian Bishop of Winchester, of whom he said that " both living and dying, he undermined the Church of which he was a prelate." This drew from Dr. Sturges, chancellor and prebendary of Winchester, who had owed his pro- motion many years before to Dr. Hoadley, seven letters on " Popery " in its various aspects. Milner replied with his well-known Letters to a Prebendary, written in a style calculated to cause further ill-feeling. Vehemence of language was not Milner 's only fault as an historian and controversialist: writing in later days (October, 1842) to John Walker of Scarborough, Lingard remarked: " I had plenty of means of ruining his reputation both as to ' Winchester ' and ' Letters to a Prebendary.' He was too ardent, something like yoa: and seldom re- ferred to a passage or even quoted it, without committing a blunder or an infidelity." * We can imagine that to the legal mind of Charles Butler, to the scrupulous exactitude of Lingard 's his- torical sense, such faults in the man who so often bore down upon them in polemical warfare and reckless criticism, were especially galling. The second result of Milner 's controversy we have seen — ^the substitution of Dr. Stapleton for himself as * Milner's strictures on Dr. Hoadley were no more severe than those of George II, the monarch who nominated him to the See of Winchester in 1734. " If the Bishop of Winchester is your friend," he exclaimed to Lord Hervey, "you have a great puppy and a very dull fellow, and a great rascal for your friend. . . . He is just the same thing in the Church that he is in the Government, and as ready to receive the best pay for preaching the Bible, though he does not believe a word of it, as he is to take favours from the Crown, though, by his republican spirit and doctrine, he would be glad to abolish its power." (Hervey s Memoirs ; Wilkins, Caroline the Illustrious, pp. 523, 524.) 74 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD vicar-apostolic of the Midland District. It was pointed out to the Pope that his nomination at such a moment; would be inacceptable to the English government, and remembering all that the papacy owed to England during the late wars, Pius VII cancelled the appoint- ment. The decision, as was perhaps natural, displeased Mr. Milner, and it is interesting to^ find that .this champion of ecclesiastical authority could chide his hierarchical superiors, as well as other persons whose conduct he thought meet for rebuke. The cotitroversy with Dr. Sturges continued, and caused so much ill-feeling on both sides, that Dr. Horsley, Bishop of Rochester, appealed to Dr. Douglass to bring it to an end. In view of the great services| he had rendered to the Catholic body. Dr. Douglass) acoeded to the bishop's wish, and requested Milner to withhold the publication of his book. The End of Religious Controversy, which he was preparing against Dr. Sturges. Milner obeyed, and his obedience is all the more praiseworthy for the struggle it cost him: " It is no slight sacrifice," he wrote to his bishop, " to per- mit an enemy to sing Te Deum at the close of the dispute when it is in my power to silence him for ever with a single sheet." The news of Dr. Stapleton's appointment was no, doubt received at Crook Hall with relief : not only that their president was left to them, but because some of Milner 's theories, and the asperity of language in which they were couched, and which was apparently part of his nature, were not altogether consonant with those of Lingard and his friends. During the year 1800, Lingard kept a joxirnal— chiefly a record of his historical studies: Gibbon read and compared with Fleury, Froissart, Villani, Muratori, ■Wraxall, etc. Of Gibbon he notes: INTERESTING NOTES 75 " Gibbon's method of treating these Crusades is easy for the writer, but perplexing to the reader. After per- using the whole chapter, the mind retains but a faint recollection of the facts, and these appear in such con- fusion that it cannot discover the order of time in which they should be arrayed." Among many interesting notes are the following from Muxatori: "The etymology of Falcone in Bosco [Villani XI, c. 79, 'Mur atari XV, p. 746] suggests Hawkwood as the true name of the English adventurer [Wals(ingham?) Hist. Eng.] who, with a band of adventurers, the White Brother- hood, ravaged Italy from the Alps to Calabria. This torrent of English overflowed from France into Italy after the peace of Br^tigny in 1360. After twenty-two vic- tories he (also called Acuto) died in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buried with the greatest honours. *' The Emperor Manuel visited England, among the other Western nations, in 1400. Leonico Chalchondyles, an Athenian, has recorded the observations of the Em- peror and his followers (torn. II, pp. 44-50). He says the French think themselves the first of Western nations, but this arrogance has been lately humbled by their un- successful wars against the English." * — Muratori. Ibid. Ducat is so called from the Dukes of Milan, florin from the Republic of Florence: they may be com- pared in weight and value to one-third of the English guinea. The journal contains a pithy r^sumd of the wars of! the Turks against the Venetians : of Spain in 155 6; with a short but masterly sketch of the character of Philip II — with his imremitting attention to business, impartial administration of justice, accurate knowledge * It will be remembered that in l8oo accounts such as the above— familiar to us in encyclopaedia and guide-book — were the delightful fruits of research in foreign or ancient writers. 76 LIFE OE JOHN LINGARD of all the concerns of government, to the minutest details as among the least of his endowments. On the other hand, sullen and reserved; proud, sanguinary aiid am- bitious; destitute of talents for war, and capable of making religion subservient to his passions, "Ob- stinately bent on introducing the Inquisition into the Netherlands against the will of the inhabitants, he for ever lost great part of that flourishing province." Every, sentence in the journal foreshadows the future historian, and shows that Lingard at the age of twenty- nine was already in possession of that calm sense of even-handed justice, of open-mindedness, of surely balanced judgment, which distinguished his maturer years: the two sides of every question — in their right proportions — ^appearing to present themselves simulta- neously to perceptions imbiassed by prejudice or pre- conception. The journal, begun on the 25th March and ending on the 13th November, affords, moreover, a striking example of the amount of careful reading a very busy man could get through in his few leisiure hours. Con- temporary events also find a place: of the late Pope, Pius VI, is given an account received from his friend. Bishop Cameron (of the English College at Valla- dolid) : " Pius VI was governed in many respects by a Jesuit, his secretary. Yet this did not preserve him from censure for not restoring the order. A! book entitled Memoria Catholica was published against him on this account, and suppressed in Rome. B. C. got a copy in Spain." " Read life of Clement XIV. in French by Carraciolo, principally anecdotes and a few reflections, Clement appears by it to have been a great and good man. His diseases baffled the science and resources of his physicians: an enemy of the Jesuits would have attributed BONAPARTE'S REGULATIONS tj it to poison; their friends to the just judgments of GodI"* " Miracles. St. Augustine, etc., are condemned for having introduced that spirit of credulity with respect to miracles, which appears in the history of the Saxon Chris- tians. However, I observe that in Bede almost all the miracles related by him were wrought and celebrated by the Christians who owed their conversion to the labours of the Scottish monks." The above extract shows Lingard at work on hia Anglo -Saxon papers, as the following tells of his visits to Durham: " April was almost wholly employed in the ' retreat ' and visits to Durham." Many are the interesting facts contained in the few pages of this journal, which the limits of our space do not permit us to quote, such as the detailed account sent by Bishop Cameron of the Inquisition in Spain at the end of the eighteenth century, summed up as follows: " AU the trials which B[ishop] C[ameron] was acqtiainted wdth tended to give him a high idea of the impartiality of this tribunal." One of Bonaparte's early acts after establishing him- self as sole consul of France, was to make regulations in the united British Seminary at Paris, of which the English Catholics had succeeded in recovering posses- sion three years previovisly. Lingard notes : " The rector is obliged to send to the bishops in England, Scotland, and Ireland, an account of the number of persons he can maintain on the funds formerly belong- ing to each kingdom. The bishops are to nominate to these places. If they do not within a year from the notification, the right devolves to the rector. None of the English or Scotch bishops have nominated — probably none of the Irish. Mr. Welch, the rector, has procured Irishmen from Italy." * Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of JeSus in 1772. 78 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Bishop Cameron furnished the followang 3panishl anecdote : " As soon as an ecclesiastic is raised to the episcopate his former patrons send him their younger sons to be his pages, but in reality that he may educate them, and raise them to the first benefices. A bishop who was overburthened with these pages established the strictest discipline among them in regard to study, progress, abstinence and fasting. They com- plained to their parents, and their parents to the bishop. His reply was hoc genus detnoniorutn non ejlcitur nisi in oratione et jejunio." CHAPTER V DURING the nine years which had passed since the Relief Act of 1791, the English Catholic body- had repeatedly sought for complete emancipation, and in the year 1800 it appeared as if their wishes were on the point of fulfilment. The Act of Union with Ireland passed the British Parliament on the 2nd July, and it was understood that it should be followed by another for Catholic emancipation. The ministers were ready to keep their promise, and the anxiety of the English Catholics is reflected in Bishop Douglass's diary : "180 1. February 16. — The last week has been to us a most awful week. Dr. Moylan [Bishop of Cork] had been informed by Lord Castlereagh that the emancipation of the Catholics had been strongly debated in the Cabinet Council, and had been carried. . , . The Test Act should be done away ... in place of every other oath, this one oath of loyalty to the King, fidelity to the Constitu- tion, and a renunciation of the Jacobin principles so prevalent at this day, should be the only oath required for any office or post whatever. . . . The Catholic clergy should be pensioned and the Catholic hierarchy pre- served. This was the sole condition required on the part of the Ministry, viz. that when a Catholic bishop was to be chosen, three names should be presented to the King, and the King should have a right of fixing upon one of the three . . . the jurisdiction, appointment, and consecra- tion, etc., being left as it now is. When the Emancipation then, accompanied with these 79 8o LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD advantages . . . was made known to us, what wonder we were made happy and rejoiced in the prospect? But alas I His Majesty took it into his head to resist this determination of his Ministers, and of the Privy Council. . . . The King alleges for his conduct thus resisting his Ministers and Council that the Emancipation of the Catholics would be a violation of his Coronation Oath. How unfounded is this scruple! The newspapers, the general sense of the nation declare this scruple to be unfounded." * William Pitt and his colleagues, with many of their friends at once resigned office, which they considered they could no longer ihold with honour; and one of the first effects of the Union was to bring to an end Pitt's first long and honoiu-able tenure of office. The crisis had important results for the Catholic body — introduc- ing the VetO' question, which was destined to cause agitation among them for many years to come. ^ Besides these igeneral interests — common to all their co-religionists — ^the authorities at Crook Hall ha,d, at this time, their own difficulties to deal with. The accommodation in the house was now totally inadequate ; and Bishop Gibson and his clergy remained steadfast in their desire to 'have a college in the North. f The question was where it should be situated, and jf it should be episcopal, or pontifical like Douay. These matters were long and hotly debated when the pre- liminaries of the peace of Amiens — ^signed by Lord Hawkesbury and M. Otto, ist October, 1801 — brought Douay itself upon the horizon. A return thither had always been considered as a future possibility, and when the 12th article of the preliminaries provided * Ward, Vol. II, p. 216. t In the year 1800 there were four professors and thirty- two students. At the time of removal to Ushaw, the numbers had increased to five professors and forty-seven students, and there was promise of greater increase in the near future. THE PEACE OF AMIENS 8i " that all sequestrations . . . shall be taken off im- mediately after the signature of the definitive treaty," etc., Bishop Douglass at once wrote to Mr. Daniel, the late president of Douay, to ask his opinion, in order to draw up a memorial to the ministry. He further invited him, to come to London, to discuss the matter with himself and Drs. Gibson and Stapleton, of the Northern and Midland Districts. The result of the conference was the determination that it was not expedient " to attempt the re-establishment of Douay College." There can be no doubt that the decision was a wise one; the necessity for educating their priests abroad happily no longer existed, and the maintenance of the colleges established at home required all the funds obtainable. Moreover, the peace of Amiens, signed on the 27th March, 1802, lasted exactly thirteen months, and was succeeded by a fresh outburst of Napoleonic war, which was to endure thirteen years. The conference also decided that the ex-presidents of Douay and St. Omer — Mr. Daniel and Dr. Staple- ton — ^should at once proceed to those towns to gain possession of the colleges. They accordingly arrived at St. Omer on the 20th May, 1802, where Bishop Stapleton fell ill, and died ,three days later. Mr. Daniel with his companion, Mr. Smith, one of the last of the Douay " seniors," had pressed on, but their mission led to no results, and Mr. Daniel eventually settled at St. Gregory's Seminary in Paris, where he died in 1823.* By the death of Dr. Stapleton, the Midland District * Four years previously, in 1798, the condition of the English College at Douay had been thus described by a former student :," It is now employed for the keeping of corn, bedding, blankets, etc. , and other baggage for the army. Almost all the partitions in the Students' rooms are thrown down. The books in the Divine's Library and Philosophical instruments and books, and the marble tabernacle are kept at the College of Auchin, under the care of a man who has the title of librarian." (Ward, Dawn of the Catholic Revival, Vol. II, p. 167.) 82 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD was again deprived of its bishop within fifteen months of his consecration. During that short period, Staple- ton, by his gentleness and persuasive authority, had succeeded in bringing to a happy conclusion a vexed question which had originated at the time of the Catholic Committee, when certain priests — one of whom, Dr. John Kirk, was Lingard's intimate friend and correspondent — ^and who were known as the " Staf- fordshire Clergy," had signed an address to Bishop Thomas Talbot, and written various letters and protests, which they had been called upon by Drs. Walmesley and Gibson to retract. Dr. Stapleton left behind him a " terna " as it is called — three names to be presented to Rome for the election of his successor. These were the Rev. Joseph Hodgson, ex-vice-president of Douay, William Poynter, vice-president of St. Edmund's, and the Rev. Thomas Smith. The absence of Milner'si name was marked, and there can be little doubt that Dr. Stapleton's conciliating disposition caused him to look upon Milner, as hardly the stamp of man required while the district was still in a state of friction.* This was the opinion in Rome, and when Drs. Gibson and Douglass wrote begging that Milner might be appointed as soon as possible. Cardinal Borgia, prefect of Propaganda, signified that Milner must not be chosen to the vacant vicariate quippe qui in multas isthic incidit simuUaies. His want of tact and pru- dence, the vehemence of his language, his proneness — in the appropriate term then in vogue — ^to " blister the reputation " of his opponents, were defects which were held to counter -balance his many real qualifications for the office of bishop. Nevertheless, he was destined for the mitre: and strange to say, the determining, factor was Monsignor Erskine, who had returned to • Ward, Vol. II, p. 252. MILNER MADE BISHOP 83 Rome, after nine years' sojourn in England, in October, 1802, and had been raised to the purple three months later.* During his stay in Ijondon, Milner had been openly hostile to him, had written him letters, described by himself as in " warmth of style," " spirit and copiousness " as strong as ever he had written in his life, and had employed his usual uncompromising lan- guage at several personal interviews. But Erskine was large-minded enough to recognise Milner's intellectual superiority, his personal integrity, unassailable ortho- doxy, and that he was by far the strongest man the Cathblics possessed in England at the time. And there was always the hope that as a bishop he might temper the defects which had marred his zeal as a priest. He was accordingly appointed Vicar-Apostolic of the Mid- land District, with the title of Bishop of Castabala in; Cilicia Secunda, William Poynter being at the same time made coadjutor bishop to Dr. Douglass. The briefs arrived in London on the 12th April, 1803, and Milner went to prepare for his consecration by a solemn retreat in the monastery of Trappist monks, established by Mr. Weld, at Lulworth. In the silence and solitude of that strict cloister, he wenjt through all the religious exercises of the community with the utmost fervour. f He was consecrated in his own chapel at Winchester on the 22nd May, 1803, and among the clergy present was John Lingard, who had travelled from Crook Hall for the occasion. The new bishop was fifty-one years of age.J • Monsignor Erskine, a relation of Lord Kellie, had been sent to the English Court at the end of the year 1793 to thank the Government for the declaration of their intention to protect the States of the Church against the French. He was a great friend of Sir John Throckmorton, one of the most militant members of the Cisalpine Club, and at once consorted with that party, somewhat to the dismay of Bishop Douglass, + Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner, p. 8g. X It may have been at this time that t)r. Milner showed how little French he had brought away with him from Douay, or how greatly he had lost his 84 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Lingard's next visit to Winchester was on a very- different and sadder occasion: his father, in the sixty- eighth year of his age, died in January, 1804, and was buried in the little Catholic burial-ground of St. James, outside the west gate of the city. John Lin- gard the elder died two years before the publication of his son's first work: but his wife Elizabeth lived twenty years longer, and saw her son grow into fame and honour biefore, in her turn, she was laid by him beside his father. The renewal of the war with France took place in April, 1803, and in the middle of the year Bishop Gibson and some of the clergy were talking of the various schemes fot a new college in the presence of the agent of the Acton Burnell and Esh estates, when the latter asked, " Why not take the outside farm at Ushaw?" The bishop agreed, and froM that day the foundation of Ushaw College may be dated.* The day-book of the works records that on January 4th, 1804, the quarrymen began "to win stones for the college," and Lingard was engaged in the — to him — always uncongenial task of helping to collect building funds. He wrrote to his friend John Orrell (loth August, 1805) that the daily expense amounted to about £50: " The north wing is very nearly ready for the roof; the south front is raised above the first joisting. . . . Mr. Gillow promises £150 more from York, and says that an mastery of the language. Writing many years later (14 August, 1849) to John Walker, of Scarborough, Lingard says : "I'll give you a proof of Dr. Milner's great skill in the French tongue. I was with him at n large party at Winchester. A lady, splendidly dressed, entered the room. He turned to me, saying, ' Qui est celui-lh ? ' I answered with a profound bow, ' Monseigneur, celui-lh est une dame. ' " * The site of this "outside farm" is marked by mounds of green turf in the field between the pond and the high road in the grounds of the present college estate. Ushaw Moor formed part of the Smythe estate at Esh. (See Ushaw College : A Centenary Memorial. Edited by Robert C . Laing. ) "THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH" 85 old lady there, who is going the way of old flesh, has left in her will £400 for the building. Yet if we consider that £1200 of timber is wanting to complete the front and north wing, I sometimes fear we shall be at a stand. . . . Do you think nothing more will be done in Lanca- shire?" * These labours did not prevent Lingard from con- tinuing the researches which were to fructify into his first historical work — The Antiquities of the Anglo- Saxon Church. He had helpful literary friends in Charles Butler, and in the priests in various parts of England. We find letters from the Rev. Joseph Curr, of Rook Street, Manchester, sending him, in answer to a (sieries of questions, a quantity of information culled from the great library which old Humphrey Chetham had founded in 1656: from Joseph Hodgson, ex-vice- president of Douay, now established at St. George's- in-the-Fields, London, relating his painstaking attempts to decipher the crumpled old pages of a " thick velltun MS. in the British Musevmi, said to have been written in 703, and to have belonged to King Athelstan." In a letter to President Eyre, the same writer, after giving various items he has transcribed, goes on : " Mr. Lingard once asked me if I observed in the MS. life of St. Dunstan any mention of the crucifix, of the floor, of the Devil pulling St. Dunstan by the nose. I believe I have already answered that / did not. Nor do I believe that these three miracles or events are re- corded in that life." Lingard's questions deferred to three reported miracles which he believed to be later popular em- bellishments: a fcrucifix was said to have uttered words * The Rev. John Orrell (1744-1810) was the priest at Blackbrooke, Lancashire. The day-bool<, under date loth August, records a total expenditure of £,'2■o^^ i6s. 3d. 86 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD approving of St, Dunstan's decisions at a council at Calne: the floor at another meeting of discontented clergy gave way, and several persons were killed or injured, while Dunstan escaped by clinging to a beam, which was inagnified into a miraculous intervention of Providence; these, as well as the oft-recorded en- counter with the devil, Lingard found to be events un- known to the more ancient writers.* At the end of the year 1806 Lingard's first book, the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, was pub- lished by Edward Walker, of Newcastle. More than sixty, years have elapsed since the last edition of the work was revised and enlarged by Dr. Lingard in 1845, six years before his death; and, as was to be the case with his History of England, the discoveries made during that period — when the great archives of Europe have given up their secrets — ^have left the book, written by a young professor in a small! North-country college, in hours won from a life of constant labour, the standard work, the text-book of the student of the Anglo-Saxon Church. No greater proof could bfe given of the skill in research, the extra- ordinary industry, thfe power of overcoming almost in- superable difficulties which distinguished its author. It had bieen the work of years, during which the writer had obtained so complete a mastery of his subject that as the easy, graceful narrative flows along, it carries with it the assent of the reader. The crisp simplicity of style has saved it from the staleness, which nowadays so often hampers the enjoy- mient of the literature of the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries: there are noi flowers of rhetoric, no general theorising; the facts, dearly established by the evidence adduced, are left to • S«e Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. II, p. 319. STYLE AND LANGUAGE 87 speak for themselves. The language, easy and natural, melts into beauty when the theme is beautiful and exalted, as in the description of the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, when treating of Anglo-Saxon monastic life. The friends of John Lingard's youth testified to the extreme modesty of disposition which made praise absolutely painful to; him: his own words, his every act show that the inflictioji of blame by himself, how- ever necessary or inevitable in the cause of justice and the truth, was eminently painful to him. The sweetness and equable serenity of his temper stood him in good stead, as did the sense of humour which not| only dwelt in his eyes, but underlay his most serious moods, ever ready to well up and sweeten the bitter- ness of inevitable controversies. For Lingard well knew, to use his own words in the preface to the first. edition, that the subjects of which he treated had " been fiercely debated by religious polemics." But even greater than his love of the subject which had so lon'g occupied his thoughts and labours, than his desire to make that great period better known' to his own people, was his longing to contribute somewhat towards lessen- ing the antipathy and misconceptions of the great majority of his countrymen, with regard to a subject dearer to him than life itself. The great spring and motive of his writings, from the first to the last of his indefatigable labours, was to persuade his alien coimtry- men that they were mistaken in their estimate of his religion and its observers. And never was apologia presented with greater goodwill, with greater tact and prudence. He approaches the subject at once: " The great event of the reformation, while it gave a new impulse to the powers, imbittered with rancour the writings of the learned. Controversy pervaded every 88 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD department of literature: and history, as well as the sister sciences, was alternately pressed into the service of the contending parties. , . . My object is truth: and in the pursuit of truth I have made it a religious duty to con- sult the original historians. Who would draw from the troubled stream, when he may drink at the fountain head?" It is now so much the habit of historical writers to consult original documents — " to drink at the fountain- head "—that it is difficult to realise that when Lingard wrote the above words, a hundred and four years a:go, he was referring to a practical innovation. Up to that time, and long afterwards, English historical writers very generally contented themselves with reproducing, —without question or investigation — ^the statements of their predecessors. His contradiction of the mistakes of preceding historians is thus modestly introduced: " On such occasions to be silent is criminal, as it serves to perpetuate deception : and to contradict, without attempting to prove, may create doubt, but cannot inspire conviction. As often, therefore, as it has been my lot to dissent from our more popular historians, I have been careful to fortify my own opinion by frequent references to the sources from which I derived my information. . . . To the Anglo-Saxon extracts, when their importance seemed to demand it, is subjoined a literal translation. The knowledge of that language, though an easy, is not a common acquirement." * This reference to his own knowledge of the Anglo- Saxon tongue reminds us how well equipped was Lin- gard for historical research. Besides the three dead • Charles Butler sent transcripts of Anglo-Saxon MSS., and there is still preserved at Ushaw a transcript of The Chronicle of England from 730 to 1058 in the Cottonian Collection (Domitian A viii.) in the British Museum. Also a transcript of the Pontifical of Egbert, written in the eighth century in Saxon characters, which had been removed from the monastery at Evreux to the library of St= G^nevi^ve in Paris. FOREIGN TONGUES 89 langiiages — Greek, Latin, and Hebrew — he had a suffi- cient knowledge of Spanish and Italian, while he wrote in French as fluently as in English, and began to studyi German when over sixty years of age. When Lingard has to contradict a false statement or opinion, no word of bitterness likely to irritate his reader falls from his pen: his attitude is invariably as' of one who would say, " Let us see what are the truet facts of the case "; and then come the quotations from original documents in vindication of his own statement, and in triumphant negation of his adversary's. His retorts are always as courteous as they are annihilating ; the touch of irony in dealing with some hoary mis- conception is ever without guile. Instances may be found on almost every other page: thus with regard to the celibacy of the clergy he says: " The reader who is more conversant with modern than with ancient historians may not, perhaps, be disposed to believe that the discipline of the Latins was ever intro- duced into the Saxon church. He has, probably, been taught that ' the celibacy of the clergy was first enjoined by the popes in the tenth century, and not adopted by our Saxon ancestors till 500 years after their conversion: that the Saxon bishops and parochial clergy, like those of the present Church of England, added to the care of their flocks that of their wives and children: and that even the monasteries of monks were in reality colleges of secular priests, who retained the choice, without quitting the convent, either of a married or a single life.' (See Tindall's Rapin, torn, i., p. 80; Burton's Monasticon Eboracense, p. 30; Hume, Hist., c. ii., p. 28; and Henry, Vol. Ill, p. 215.) But after a patient, and, I think, impartial investigation, I hesitate not to say that the marriages of the ancient Saxon clergy must be classed with those imaginary beings which are the offspring of credulity or prejudice. Had they been permitted, they 90 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD would certainly have claimed the notice of contemporary writers, and have been the subject of synodical regula- tions : but to search for a single trace of their existence in the writings of contemporaries, or the regulations of synods, will prove an ungrateful and a fruitless labour. Every monument of the first ages of the Saxon church which has descended to us bears the strongest testimony that the celibacy of the clergy was constantly and severely enforced." Then follow references to St. Gregory the Great, Bede, Egbert, Archbishop of York, etc., four of which are given in the original Anglo-Saxon, with a literal translation.* He begins his chapter on monachdsm with the reminder that " in the conflict of rival parties, men are seldom just to the merit of their adversaries," and that " the virtues of men deserve to be recorded no less than their vices." With regard to the three vows, as they were kept by the Anglo-Saxon monks: " As early as the commencement of the second century we discover members of both sexes who had devoted them- selves to a life of perpetual celibacy (St. Just., Apol. i., c. lo; Athenog., leg., c. ,3). Yeit the sagacity of Mosheim has discovered that this practice owed its origin not to the doctrine of the gospel, but to the influence of the climate of Egypt (Mos., Scec II, p. 2, c. 3, xl; ScBC III, p. 2, c, 3). If this be true, we must admire the heroism of its present inhabitants, who in their harems have subdued the influence of the climate, and intro- duced the difficult practice of polygamy, in lieu of the easy virtue of chastity." f Lingard sums up the subject: " Of these recluses there undoubtedly must have been some, whom passion or seduction prompted to violate * Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. I, p. 100 seq. t Ibid., p. 180. A TOUCH OF IRONY ' 91 their solemn engagement: but the unsullied reputation of an immense majority contributed to cast a veil over the shame of their weaker brethren, and bore an honourable testimony to the constancy of their own virtue, and the vigilance of their superiors." * It is frequently the vmter's duty to defend the char- acter of individuals. Henry, in his Anglo-Saxon his- tory (Vol. Ill, p. 264) ascribed great haughtiness to St. Odo. " But from what lexicographer," asks Lin- gar d, " has the historian learnt that ' ammonemus regem et principes ' means ' I command the king and princes ! ' It is a singular fact that Henry's short version of ten lines is disgraced by four blunders, each of which is calculated to enforce the charge of ar^ rogance against the archbishop." t As for Carte's surmise {Hist. I, p. 246 f.n.) that a passage in Bade was a monkish forgery to purify the character of St. Wilfred, Lingard replies: " If we are bound to credit so malicious an accusation, at least we may be allowed to admire the ingenuity of the man who could so artfully interpolate every MS. that the spurious passage cannot be distinguished from the text . . . not even in that which was written before or im- mediately after the death of Bede himself." $ It is an easy task to prove from the original docu- ments, the faith and practice of the Anglo-Saxons with regard to the Eucharist, the Mass, and auricular confes- sion ; and Lingard prefaces the account of their practice of praying for the dead with' the beautiful and well-known prayer of St. Augustine after the death of his mother., After quoting Whelock's preface to the Archaionomia, Tillotson, Mosheim, and other writers who had " dis- covered or pretended to discover " that the practice had * Ibid., pp. 184, 185. t Ibid., p. 224 f.n. X Ibid., p. 249. 92 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD originated in the interested motives of the clergy, who applauded in public and ridiculed in private, the easyi faith of their disciples, Lingard continues : " The idea may be philosophical, but it is pregnant with difficulties. The man who first detected the impos- ture should have condescended to unfold the mysteries by which it had been previously concealed. He should have explained by what extraordinary art it was effected, that of the thousands who, during so many ages, practised the imposture, no individual in an unguarded moment, no false brother in the peevishness of discontent, revealed the dan- gerous secret. . , . Why the conspirators preserved, even among themselves, the language of hypocrisy; why, in their private correspondence, they anxiously requested from each other the prayers which they mutually de- spised. . . . Till these difficulties can be removed we may safely acquit the 'Anglo-Saxon clergy of the charges of imposture. The whole tenor of their history deposes that they believed the doctrine which they taught: and if they erred, they erred with every Christian church which had existed since the first publication of the gospel." * The saints, whom the Anglo-Saxons had invoked, were, at the Reformation, calumniated by the in- novators " who violated their sepulchres and scattered their ashes to the wind " : " To appreciate the merit of those whom the Anglo- Saxons revered as saints, we should review their senti- ments and their conduct. The former may be learnt from their private correspondence, the latter from the narratives of contemporary historians. Their letters (of which some hundreds are extant) uniformly breathe a spirit of charity, meekness and zeal; a determined opposition to the most fashionable vices; and an earnest desire of receiving by their virtue the favour of heaven. Of their conduct the general tendency was to soften the ferocity of their * Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. II, p. 66. ANGLO-SAXON WOMEN 93 countrymen, to introduce the knowledge of the useful arts, to strengthen by religious motives the peace of society, to dispel the darkness of paganism, and to diffuse the pure light of the gospel. If this was fanaticism, the Anglo-Saxon saints must abandon their defence and plead guilty." * Lingaxd ends a luminous and exhaustive account of their literature with a tribute to the women : "Even the women caught the general enthusiasm: seminaries of learning were established in their convents : they conversed with their absent friends in the language of ancient Rome; and frequently exchanged the labours of the distaff and the needle for the more pleasing and more elegant beauties of the Latin poets. St. Aldhelm wrote his treatise de laudibus virginitatis for the use of the Abbess Hildelith and her nuns. The stile in which it is composed shows that, if he wished them to understand it, he must have considered them no mean proficients in the Latin language. From this treatise we learn that the nuns were accustomed to read the Pentateuch, the books of the prophets, and the New Testament, with the commentaries of the ancient fathers . . . profane history, chronology, grammar, orthography and poetry, also employed their attention. Of their pro- ficiency several specimens are still extant. The lives of St. Willibald and St, Winibald were both written in Latin by an Anglo-Saxon nun." f After celebrating the glories of the Anglo-Saxon: Churchj the writer tunes his harp to a sadder key to record and lament her desolation. For seventy years, from the day in 793 when the pagan Danes laid waste the sacred shrine of Lindisfarne, slaughtering its monks and pillaging its treasures, they ceased not to burn and massacre until they had almost wiped out the higher * Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. II, p. 8g. + Ibid., p. 157. 94 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD orders of the hierarchy, and misery and demoralisation began their work. " From the arrival of St. Augustine to the devasta- tions of the Danes a married priest was an anomalous being, unknown to the constitution of the Saxon church. But during this eventful period there arose men whose ignorance could not comprehend, or whose passions re- fused to obey, the prohibitory statutes of their ancestors. The celibacy of the clergy was openly infringed, and impunity promoted the diffusion of the scandal. ... In several places the parochial and cathedral clergy had en- tirely disappeared; and necessity compelled the bishops to select candidates for the priesthood from the inferior clerks, of whom many, without infringing the ecclesiastical canons, had embraced the state of marriage.'* Even here, Lingard has a plea of defence against the wholesale assertions of Archbishop Parker, Bishop Godwin, and other writers : " I must, however, add that after the most minute in- vestigation, I cannot discover the married clergy to have been as numerous as the policy of some writers has prompted them to assert; nor do I believe that the Anglo- Saxon history, even in the most calamitous times, can furnish a single instance of a priest who ventured to marry after his ordination. In the Antiquitates Brit. Eccles. of Archbishop Par- ker, and the Prcesules Anglicani of Bishop Godwin, the eye is fatigued with the constant repetition of Sacerdotes in conjugio legitimo pie viventes; and Spelman and Wil- kins are careful to preserve so grateful a phrase to the titles and prefaces of the charters which they have pub- lished. They should, however, to prevent mistakes, have informed their readers that this expression is of modern date, and has been recently prefixed to ancient records, in order to supply the deficiency in the original text." * * Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. II, pp. 252-4. " A CRITERION OF DEMERIT " 95 Of all the famous men of Anglo-Saxon times, none has been more the sport— in the first place of the fable- loving zeal of some of his contemporaries and admirers, and of the prejudiced animosity of later writers — ^than the great Archbishop of Canterbury, St. >Dunstan. Lingard's first care, as we have seen, was to sweep away the fabulous tales of the first, and, with his ustial happy suavity he dispels the calumnies of the latter. After, remarking that " to have been praised by the monastic historian is, in the estimation of modern writers, the in- fallible criterion of demerit," he refers to the calumnies of Rapin, Carte, Hume, and Henry, and adds : " With these writers I am sorry to number the recent historian of the Anglo-Saxons [Sharon Turner]. As in other parts of his history, he excels all his predecessors in industry and accuracy; so in his account of St. Dun- stan he has improved their incoherent fables into a well- connected romance."* (Turner, Vol. Ill, pp. 132-191.) Like most of Lingard's literary antagonists, Turner became one of his admirers; and in a letter to his friend and banker, John Coulston, of Lancaster, Lin- gard wrote many years later (June loth, 1845): " You probably know little of Sharon Turner, an old opponent, I mean literary opponent of mine. To my surprise he has written me a congratulatory letter [on a new edition of the Anglo-Saxon Church], though he never wrote to me before, though often against me, and has sent me a present of a poem he has just published. Unfortunately that detracts from the compliment. For he * Anglo-Saxon Church, Vol. II, p. 267. In a letter to his publisher, John Mawman (October, 1826), Lingard wrote of Mr. Turner : " Between you and me, though a man of great research, he sometimes makes very silly and visionary discoveries." A proof of the rapidity with which Lingard worked is furnished by the fact that Sharon Turner's book appeared while his own was in the press, and that he rewrote the whole of the second volume, without stopping the printer for a single day. ( Tierney's Memoir. ) 96 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD is seventy-seven, and a man who publishes a poem in his seventy-seventh year must be on the high road to a second childhood." It must not be forgotten that Lingard wrrote his book in pre-emancipation days, when the old cautious dis- guises were still in common practice; when the Mass was spoken of as "prayers," and Catholic priests as plain " mister," whose dress differed in nothing, save' in greater sobriety of colour, from that of the ordinary layman.* This reticence is carried by Lingard into, his writings: the Mass is hardly ever alluded to except by inference or with circumlocution, priests are " pres- byters," the popes, "bishops of Rome." His primary, object, moreover, was to induce the great body of hig countrymen to regard their Catholic past with less prejudice and dislike, as a first step towards a more, lenient attitude towards his church and its tenets; and he very well knew that so obnoxious were those terms in their eyes, that the great majority would probably close a book in which they found them of frequent occurrence. This prudent reserve was inevitably open to mis- conception among his own people; but, as we shall see in the case of his History of England, it was clearly understood and appreciated by two popes — Pius VII and Leo XII — ^the latter of whom took up its defence when it was impugned at Rome. He declared that he thought " the French critics paid no regard to circum- stances ; they had forgotten the time whien, and the place where, the history was written. "f If Lingard's * Among old-fashioned people the custom lingered late into the last century. In 1870, a gentleman of the old school habitually spoke of "going to prayers" instead of to Mass; and the "mister" instead of the habitual " father " is still the custom at Ushaw and one or two other colleges. t Letter of Dr. Baines to Lingard, quoted by the latter in a letter to John Bradley, 27th January, 1829, MILNER'S STRICTURES 97 attitude was to satisfy the supreme pontiffs, it did not satisfy Dr. Milner, who visited the Anglo-Saxon Church and its author with unmeasured condemnation. Methods so diametrically opposed to his own could not commend themselves to him; and a scholarship which he may dimly have recognised as superior to his own, doubtless appeared wasted, when not occupied on the warpath of controversy ; Lingaxd's reticence, the harniless disguises under which he hoped to win his way to the hearts of his opponents, his condescension to their prejudice or. ignorance, were regarded by Milner as almost tanta- mount to a compromise of principle. He accordingly expressed that opinion vehemently and persistently. "As to Bishop Milner/' wrote Lingard to John, Orrell (May, 1807), "he is not satisfied": " He grows worse and worse. He says the book is calculated to do as much harm as good, etc. etc. etc. In a word he is grown so intemperate that both Mr. Eyre and myself have thought it most prudent to have no corre- spondence with him. Since Easter no letters have been exchanged, and I suppose his bad humour has subsided before this — though, by the bye, I should not have said so, as I have just received a letter from my poor old mother (above 80), whom he has lately seen, and fright- ened her out of her senses by his talk about me.* But it must die away." Lingard was one of those " That have power to hurt and will do none." He could easily ha.ve retaliated by making known the numerous bltmders his superior erudition had discovered in the History of Winchester, and Letters to a Preben- dary, but his attitude towards adverse criticism, how- * The figure "80" must have been a slip of the pen for "70." Mrs. Lingard died in 1824, at the age of ninety- one. 98 LIFE OF, JOHN LINGARD ever violent, was ever to be that indicated in the above letter: "But it must die away." The publication of the book at once established its author's fame. It passed through two editions' before the end of 1810, another was published at Philadelphia in 1841, while the revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1845. A letter from the publisher, Edward Walker, dated "Newcastle, 26 June, 1810," informs Lin gar d, " I think you ought to have a profitj of £200 for yourself."* Charles Butler declared that Mr. Lingard's work was " certainly the most valuable publication written by a Catholic since Mr. Phillip's Life of Cardinal Pole," and expressed the earnest wish that Lingard : " would give us the history of the Anglo-Norman church, particularly as the contest between the King and St. Thomas of Canterbury will give him an opportunity of discussing the celebrated questions which have occasioned the disputes between Church and State," Congratulations poured in from; all sides, and the approval of Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was con- veyed to Lingard by his fellow- student at Douay, J. S. Worswick.f Adverse reviewers had the difficult task * The book was enriched by two wood-cuts and a map by Bewick ; and a little account-book, in which Lingard entered the number of copies privately sold, has the following four lines on the title-page : — "Exigis ut donem nostros tibi, Quinte, libellos. Non habeo, sed habet bibliopola Keating. Aes dabo pro nugis ? et emam tua scripta, Joannes ? Non, inquis, faciam tam fatue. Non ego." t Some of the criticisms of his friends are interesting. Richard Thompson, another fellow-student, writing to convey the congratulations of several persons as well as his own, and to say that he had disposed of all the copies sent to him for sale, adds : "I cannot help wishing to have been at your elbow when you wrote some few words, viz. Vol. I, p. 72, et alias. Presbyter, an odious word in English, Presbyter, Priest, p. 68. St. Augus- tine's anguish of disappointed zeal, appears unbecoming to the saint." In later days the terms pious obstinacy, pious enthusiasm were objected to by Dr. Rock, the chaplain at Alton Towers, and amusingly defended by Lingard. THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 99 of upholding their favourite historians against Lin- gard's contradictory, proofs, a task which Dr. Allen, Lord Holland's famous librarian, writing in the Edin- burgh Review of October, 1 8 1 5, began with the some- what supercilious remark that " It would be unreason- able ... to expect that a Catholic clergyman, zeal- ously attached to his communion, should be able to write with impartiality," etc. Having accused Lingard of " perverting the evidence of our ancient his- torians," he proceeds to give instances with regard to Edwy and Elgiva, and one or two passages which Lingard, in his later edition of the work, triumphantly refutes, though at the time he kept the wise rule ofl silence towards adverse critics, which he was never to break but once, when the same Dr. Allen, chief, most inveterate and most learned of his Protestant critics, aspersed his credibility with regard to his History of England* * Allen's review appeared after the publication of the second edition of the Anglo-Saxon Church. {Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXV, p. 3450 ' ' Allen possessed great learning and discrimination in judging of the authenticity of MSS., and the comparative purity of editions. As brusque as Lamb himself, he was more intolerant of opinions he deemed indefensible by logic ; and having reasoned himself early out of all belief, he spent the test of his life in trying to lead others to the same conclusion, or to laugh them into scepticism. . . . He was, in fact, a genuine bigot in materialism, and put about widely that his accomplished patron and most of those who were his favoured guests held similar opinions." (W. M. Torrens, M.P., Life of Viscount Melbourne, Vol. I, p. lOO. ) CHAPTER VI FROM this time forward, John Lingard's pen was to be incessantly employed, — directly and in- directly, — in the service of his Church and of his coun- try, with the " continued application," to use his own words, which, while it was to dim his sight and to bring with it the fear of blindness, only relaxed when his eyes refused the exacted service, and ceased but with life itself.* It was a time when the cause he had at heart stood in sore need of help : on the i oth of May, 1805, Lord Grenville had moved in the House of Lx)rds " to take into consideration the petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland," which was rejected by a majority of 129. A similar petition brought in by Fox was rejected in the House of Commons by a majority of 212. Disappointment at this failure enhanced the excite- ment among the Engiish Catholics, who were cease- lessly working to procure their own relief; the Cis- alpine Club, looked upon rather doubtfully by many, * In a. letter to Dr. Wiseman, at Rome, dated zsth February, 1840, Lingard wrote: "I am threatened with blindness. Before I have done writing this letter, a mist will come over my eyes and last perhaps half a day. Sometimes I get up with it . . . This winter I do not think that I have escaped a single day." He accepted this affliction with the sunny good- humour which characterised him. "Pluit, ningit, in tenebris scribo," he wrote to John Walker, of Scarborough, in November, 1842. "You say write, write, write. I say, give rae eyes, and light, light, light." "If the day be dull or rainy, I cannot see to read or write without pain," occurs in a letter to the same correspondent the following year. Later still, 12th February, 1848, he signs himself "Most truly yours, John sans een, sans teeth, sans ears, sans memory, sans everything but gratitude for your many services." (Letter to his banker, John Coulston, of Lancaster.) THE CISALPINE CLUB loi being foremost in energy and labour. Cisalpinism has been called the offspring of Gallicanism: it would per- haps be more correct to say that Gallicanism was its foster-mother, and that its true parent was a wearied impatience of long-continued ostracism, rendered all the more galling that its victims were beginning to emerge from their retirement, and to be admitted to the social life of their fellow-countrymen. The portals of the law had indeed been opened to them, by the Act of 1 79 1, Charles Butler had been admitted to the Bar, and was to be the first Catholic to become a K.C. — a, fact on which Dr. Milner did not fail to twit him, as one of the " honours and emoluments " he had achieved at the expense of his conscience.* But the army and the navy were still barred, the franchise still refused; and when, in 1807, Lord Grenville retm-ned to the charge, and proposed that Roman Catholics might be employed in the army and navy, the bill dropped and his niiinistry resigned. It was at this " very critical period," to use Lin- gard's words, that Barrington Shute, Bishop of Dur- ham, published a second edition of his charge to his clergy in the year 1806, to which he added " a second more attractive title, Th£ Grounds on which the Church of England separaied from the Church of Rome. Lin- gajd answered in a pamphlet entitled, Remarks on a Charge, etc., published at Newcastle in 1807. It was anon3niious, but its authorship was an open secret. In the preface to the voliune containing his share of the whole controversy, Lingard wrote: " The Bishop preached a holy crusade against the opinions, I had almost said the persons of the Catholics. He described them as idolators, as children of ignorance, detractors from the passion of Christ, and enemies to the * Charles Butler took silk in T831, a year before his death. 102 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD honour of God. The limits of his diocese were too narrow to confine his benevolence: he resolved to extend the benefits of his Charge to the whole nation. He presented it to his Majesty [George III] at a very critical period: he published and republished it; he gave it one title and then another; he printed it in quarto for the rich, and in duodecimo for the poor , . . that he might communicate to all his enmity to the opinions of catholics. After so much provocation we certainly may be allowed to speak in our own defence." Lingard then refers to the " crowd of disputants ": " whose ingenuity first frames a creed for the Church of Rome, and then, after combating a phantom of its own creation, exults in an easy and decisive victory." The bishop's accusations are taken seriatim and re- futed with the profotmd and extensive learning, the easy mastery of style, the good breeding, and reticent sobriety of language which, while making Lingard so formidable as an antagonist, almost invariably won for him not only the respect, but the friendship of his opponents. The controversy thus engaged was to endure two years: "A Protestant's Reply" to Lin- gard's " Remarks," by a Mr. Coates of Bedlington, chaplain to the Duke of Portland, under the name of " Elijah Index," was published in London, and drew from Lingard " A Review "of the " Protestant's Reply." One of the Bishop of Durham's accusations, defended by Coates, had been that the Catholic Church had altered the first commandment. Lingard thus apostrophises the defendant : " Good Elijah, instead of attempting to demonstrate what you know to be impossible, look at your own Hebrew bible, and you will find that the catholics place this commandment exactly where Moses placed it. If "DURHAM CONTROVERSY" 103 then the guilt of the suppression be imputed to the catho- lics, the Jewish legislature must share it with them." Before the end of the year 1807 another and more moderate opponent entered the lists in the person of Mr. Henry Phillpotts, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who, in two letters from A Clergyman of the Diocese of Durham., while combating Lingard's statements laid the first stones to his own future fame and good for- tune. At the same time he expresses his admiration for Lingard's " sportive talents " and " gay and debonair demeanour."* During the following year other champions appeared, notably Mr. Hollingsworth, Curate of Hartlepool, who wrote "Five Letters" against Lin- gar d, and then three more, published in 1809, under the attractive title, Three More Pebbles from the Brook, or the Romish Gotiath Slain with his own Weapon, while Dr. Shute returned to the charge with The Church of England's Doctrine of the Lord's Sapper, being an abstract of the Grounds on which the Church of England, etc., published in London, iSog.f Simultaneously with this controversy, Lingard was engaged in another, and shorter one. Bishop Douglass, V. A. of the London District, and fifty-eight noblemen and gentlemen, headed by Lord Shrewsbury had pre- sented an address to the King declaring their loyalty in the strongest terms. This had provoked " A Liege Subject" to publish an "Address to Electors," in which he gave extracts proving the disloyalty of the Catholics from a book which he described as a Catholic catechism, although he knew it to have been written by a Protestant. This admission was wrung from him * Phillpotts was immediately made Rector of Gateshead, and soon after Prebendary of Durham and perpetual curate of Holy Cross in that city. t Lingard's share of the whole controversy, finally published in book form in two volumes, fills 833 closely printed pages. 104 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD by Lingard in a " Letter on Catholic Loyalty " to the Newcastle Courant of 8th June, 1807, followed by a second letter with the same title, in which we find a stern directness of rebuke which stands out in rehef against his usual "debonair demeanour." " I shall now take the liberty to accuse him of a crime of no small magnitude, of having uttered a false note, knowing the same to be forged. I charge him with having presented to the public extracts from a book, which he described as a catholic catechism, though it is not a catholic catechism. I charge him with having committed this fraud maliciously and on purpose, be- cause he must have read on the title page of the book that it was written ' by a protestant of the Church of England.' There can be no doubt that many of your readers, Sir, were the dupes of this forgery. . . ." In the second letter, on the 4th July, after !the delinquent's rather shuffling excuses, Lingard says: " It was to extort this confession that I was originally induced to engage in the dispute. . . . His avowal that they [principles incompatible with loyalty] are contained, not in the catholic catechism, but in a treatise written by a protestant controvertist, has done away the mischief which might have arisen from so erroneous a notion. . . . The fraud that he [the ' Liege Subject '] committed at the very outset has undermined his credit, and the man who is willing to be deceived by him a second time de- serves to be the dupe of his own credulity." With this letter the controversy ended. These polemics were the work of casual hours snatched from the daily round of a busy life. Lingiard wrote to John OrreU on the 28th May, 1807, that they hoped to be in Ushaw in September or October, and that money was needed. " When we enter, we shall transfer forty-five from Crook, about eighteen from DR. GIBSON AND STONYHURST 105 Tudhoe, and ten others we expect to receive, as we already have that number of applications. We shall be about seventy." There was sore nee'd of money and of haste. Bishop Gibson had not seen with unalloyed satisfaction Ithe establishment of the ex- Jesuits in his district. Their arrival at Stonyhturst, in August 1794, had not only deprived him of the assistance promised by Lords Clifford and Arundel, Mr. Weld and many old pupils of St. Omer and Li^ge, but every year that passed attracted a greater number of lay-students to their college, whose stipends would have helped the " new Douay " of Crook or Ushaw to support the poor Church students on its foimdation. The duty of providing priests for his district lay with him, and although the ex- Jesuits were bound to send their subjects on the mission, theiy had a tight to their services in the college for eight years after ordination; and the question of the control of the bishops had occasionally led to fric- tion and to appeals to Rome. Dr. Gibson had at- tempted to settle matters at the outset by proposing that the new arrivals should join forces for good and all with the clergy of the district, and " forget all past distinctions between Douay and Li^ge." He also at- tempted to assert rights over the election of the presi- dent, which induced the society to obtain from Propa- ganda a confirmation of the brief permitting them to lead life in common, igranted in their favom: in 1778 by Pope Pius VI.* * J. H. Pollen, An Unobserved Centenary, p. il. The question was an old one. Bishop Matthew Gibson and Mr. William Strickland, rector of the ex-Jesuits at Liege, had debated it in 1790 with respect to a young priest, Mr. Tristram, whom the bishop claimed as belonging to his district, while Mr. Strickland desired to send him to the Midland District. Dr. Gibson quotes the words of the original Grant of 1 7 75, from which he declines to depart, and which placed the ex-Jesuits under the control of the Vicars- Apostolic. (Ushaw MS S., II.) io6 LIf:E of JOHN LINGARD It is therefore no wonder to find that the fiery old bishop was constantly riding over to see the progress of the works, and that the item, "Ale for the Bishop," to be given to the workmen in token of his satisfaction, or as an encouragement to further exertions, appiears at frequent intervals in the building accounts.* Not- withstanding every effort, it was not until Tuesday, July 19th, 1808, that the first batch of "little lads" left Crook for Ushaw, the senior students following, and last of all, the president, Mr. Thomas Eyre, on Tuesday, August 2nd — ^amid the ringing of bells and the loud cheers of the students — made his entry into the new college, where Lingard was formally appointed vice-president, an office he had only held de facto at Crook Hall. When it came to the point, both masters and stu- dents were reluctant to leave the familiar walls, where they had spent many happy days. " Under all its great inconveniences," wrote one of them, " there reigned a spirit of the greatest cordiality and goodwill, and we were averse to leaving it for Ushaw." Their new home was in a sadly unfinished state. The house, large and commodious, stood on a bare hill-top, very scantily provided with trees; of the quadrangular building which had been projected, only three sides were built, and even they were scarcely finished. The west side had not even been begun. It is said that when the students first arrived the ambulacra had not been flagged, and pools of water sometimes stood on the bare ground which formed the only floor. f There was a good deal of low fever in the neigh- bourhood, and before many months had passed, an outbreak of typhus attacked almost every member of * The first entry occurs on January 30th, 1804. t See Ushaw College : A Centenary Memorial, p. 34. TYPHUS FEVER 107 the community; and soon five graves, set closely side by side in the hastily consecrated college burial-ground, held the youthful victims of the strange lack of hygienic and sanitary knowledge which characterised the early nineteenth century.* On the sth March, 1809, Lingard wrote to John Orrell : " We are at last freed or nearly freed from the dreadful visitation. . . . Including servants fifty-seven persons have been ill of the fever, some slightly; others, the greater part, more severely; five have died. . . . Here you have the extent of our misfortune, great part of which, were it possible, it would be prudent to conceal. Two deaths are, indeed, concealed from the boys. But I dare say the whole, and much more than the whole, will be rumoured all over the nation. 'At Stonyhurst they have had the goodness to have public prayers for us. This was cer- tainly very kind and charitable. But the story will be told with many exaggerations in every letter written from thence." The authorities at Ushaw did not find Dr. Gibson easy to deal with. With regard to money collected by Orrell for the new college, Lingard continues : " To fix it to any particular object he considers an insult, as if he did not know in what manner it would be best expended. Neither will he consent that any public subscription should be made and the money placed in Mr. Eyre's hands. He would immediately suspend Mr. Eyre and the whole of us. Should, however, any money from any quarter be sent privately to Mr. Eyre, I have no doubt he would expend it to the best of his judgment." * Bishop Gibson stoutly maintained that dampness had nothing to do with the outbreak ; that the infection had come from outside. Francis Crathorne, of Garswood, writing to president Eyre, July gth, 1809, says : " I find he will not hear a word of the house being damp, etc. ; he says, ' such notions are looked upon as futile by all intelligent men. ' " io8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD While Lingard had his share of the troubles land difficulties under which the infant college was suffering from its visitation of sickness and the whims of an autocratic bishop, he had his own personal anxieties. Dr. Milner's savage attack upon his history of the Anglo-Saxon Church caiised him to hesitate as to the expediency of continuing his studies and researches for the History of England, which had long possessed his thoughts. He feared not for himself, but fon Ushaw — lest the doubts cast by one of the vicars- apostolic of England upon his own good faith and orthodoxy should bring discredit upon the college of which he was vice-president. He expressed his doubts to his good friend Charles Butler, who answered him as follows : "Lincoln's Inn [1809]. Probably you would have escaped my troubling you with another letter if it were not for the concern I feel at the information you give me of the persecution you have sustained on account of your work, and your fears that your continuing it might prove injurious to the estab- lishment at Ushaw. I have heard it vaguely mentioned that Dr. Milner has found some parts of it reprehensible. With this exception, I have not heard any person express himself of it without the highest respect. I have not heard it insinuated by any one person that it contains any- thing which the severest orthodoxy can justly censure. I beg leave to observe to you that there scarcely is a spiritual writer whose literary life is known to us, with whose works some wrong-headed person has not taken offence. You know the persecutions which the very or- thodox Bollandists suffered. , . , Many years elapsed be- fore Mr. A. Butler's Lives of the Saints overcame the prejudice entertained against them. . . . Yet all these authors are now generally allowed to be scrupulously orthodox. CHARLES BUTLER'S ADVICE 109 Perhaps no persons do the cause of religion more harm than those who attempt to contract the Pale of Or- thodoxy. ... A wise man will not attempt it, but will be satisfied with . . . the boundary that the faith of Christ has assigned. It is impossible for me not to respect the motives of your silence so far as you think it serves the cause of Ushaw, but if your continuing your history, in the spirit in which you began it, will be prejudicial to her interests, I can only say that the Catholics of this country are in a miserable state of servitude to their bishops. Setting aside its influence upon Ushaw, I think you may venture to set at defiance the Ecclesiastical Artillery. The only precaution to be taken is to forbear from writing any answer to their cavils. . . . This was the rule laid down by Mr. Hume. ... I have practised what I have preached; since the year 1791 there scarcely has passed a year without some publication from Dr. Milner, Mr. Plowden or some other gentleman of that school, in which my name has not been brought forward; but I have never noticed a single publication of the kind and most certainly never shall. I hope you will summon courage enough to favour us with the much desired continuation of your history. At all events, I hope you will favour us with a second edition of the first part, as the first is out of print. . . ." * Put into good heart by this wise and friendly letter, Lingard laid aside his scruples and pursued his his- torical researches. Another incentive from a very diflferent quarter also impressed him; the Protestant publisher of his tracts against the Bishop of Durham, Walker, of Newcastle, one day remarked to him, " After aU, what is the use of these pamphlets? Few Protes- tants read them. If you wish to make an impression, write books that Protestants will read." * Charles Butler's Letter Book, British Museum MS., 25, 127, Plut. CXXXV A. no LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD The burdens of office, increased by the failing health of president Eyre, left Lingard less time than ever for literary work, and an Introduction to Talbot's Protes- tant Apology for the Catholic Church, published in Dublin in 1809, and a Defence of Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible (Dublin, 1810), were the only works from his pen during the remainder of his life at Ushaw.* On the 18th May, 18 10, Thomas Eyre, first president of the college, died at the age of sixty-two, and great efforts were made by Lingard's friends to secure the office for him, or at least to retain him at Ushaw. Not until the nth Jime the following year did the Rev. John Gillow, of York, who had, like president Eyre, devoted a large part of his private fortune to the founding of the college, arrive at Ushaw as jts second president. During the interval Lingard had been in charge of the college. Immediately Upon Gillow's appointment the professorship of Scripture and Hebrew at the recently established college of May- nooth, was offered to Lingard by Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork; while Bishop Douglass made a strenuous effort to recall him to the London District. Lingard had been on a tour in Scotland during the summer holidays, and upon his return to Ushaw wrote to Dr. Douglass (August 14th, 181 1) expressing his regret that that prelate's duty to his district will not allovsn him to consent to Lingard's request. The latter has consulted many clergymen of the North and else- where; all agree that having laboured eighteen * " Errata of the Protestant Bible ; or the Truth of the English Transla- tions examined : In a Treatise showing some of the errors that are to be found in the English translations . . . against such Points of Religious Doctrines as are the Subject of Controversy between them and the Members of the Catholic Church, by Thos. Ward, author of the celebrated poem entitled England's Reformation. (London : Printed in the year 1688. . . . Reprinted by R. Coyne, Arran Street, Dublin, 1807.") Lingard's Preface contained a biography of the author. INTERESTING INSIGHT iii years in the district has earned him a title to remain in it: " It would be cruel to remove me against my wish. ... I have been so long in this country, and am attached to it on so many considerations, that I cannot bring myself to acquiesce in the idea of leaving it." Dr. Douglass yielded to these representations and the subject dropped.* We get an interesting insight into Lingard's char- acter in a letter to Bishop Poynter a few years later, on the subject of the presidency of St. Edm,Und's College : " 26 February, 1817. ... It is with painful feelings that I now allude to that part of your lordship's letter which regards myself. The services of my pen, such as they may be, are always at your lordship's command; but when you turned your thoughts towards me as the future superior of St. Edmund's, you little thought how unfit I am for such a situation. I have not sufficient nerve. Of a timid and indulgent disposition, always eager to please and ab- horring the very idea of giving pain, I am not the person to preserve discipline, or to struggle against difficulty. It is not through prejudice against St. Edmund's that I say so. It is a lesson which I have learned from ex- perience. For more than a year I was acting president of Ushaw. It was to me a time of anxiety and misery. Bishop Smith and Mr. Gillow employed every inducement to prevail on me to stay with the latter. Though it hurt me to refuse, I did so, because I was convinced that my health, my comfort, and even more than that was at stake. I resolved never more if possible to involve my- self again in a situation to which I was so ill adapted. * In 1804, Bishop Gibson had, from motives of economy, thought of dispensing with Lingard's services at Crook, and wrote to Dr. Douglass proposing his return to his native district. Mr. Eyre protested so strongly that the proiect went no further. 112 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD I hope therefore that your lordship will not be offended if I presume to decline the offer, and beg that you will no more think of such an appointment." On the 3rd September, 181 1, John Lingajrd ieft Ushaw for Hornby, a village eight miles from Lan- caster, which wa^ tOi be his home for the next forty years, the remaininig half of his long life. Bishop Gibson was happily inspired when, in view of Lingard's literary labours, he appointed him, to a place where thb parochial duties were of the lightest, and he would have abundant time for his historical and controversial works. After nearly thirty years of collegiate life, the change was great from its hampering regular routine to the freedom and solitude of a small village cure; from the bleak and cheerless, somewhat desolate Dur- ham district and the bare half -finished halls of Ushaw,, to the romantic beauty of the sheltered lowier valley of the Lune, and to the snug presbytery which Mrs. Fenwick had built and endowed the very year of Lin- gard's birth, bequeathing to it the stately Chippendale furniture which graced and dignified its homely rooms,, while her portrait, in a blue dress, smiled down at him as he sat at meat. No more ideal home for a literaiTi man could wiell be conceived than the quiet little village numbering 420 souls *; and the new abode within the walled garden, the cultivation of which was to become a favourite hobby, with its pear trees against the south wall, its sun-dial, its paddock, and the graceful Wen-: ning, a tributary of the Lxme, well stocked with trout,, bordering the small domain. As was universally the case with chapels built before the Relief Act of 1791, the humble chapel at Hornby stood within the house, and was nothing more than one * The population of Hornby rose to 477 in 1821, but declined to 383 in 1 83 1. FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS 113 of its rooms. Lingaxd's congregation numbered some forty sotds, all of them poor working people, and the scattered individual remnants, still to be met with here and there in Lancashire and Cheshire tell, with tears in their eyes, of " th' oidd doctor's" charity and good- ness : that none ever turned " empty away from his door," while his Sunday afternoon catechism in the little chapel made an indelible impression — subsisting after more than sixty-five years. The grand carriages which used to drive up from time to time in those coaching- days, bringing great personages to visit " th' ould doctor " in the days of his fame, axe still remem- bered; while tradition has preserved the memory of what a fine skater he was in his younger days, defying all competitors — who sometimes came from afar — ^easily " cutting his name in the ice," and accomplished in the graoefxil art acquired at Douay, and perfected at Crook and Ushaw. After the death of Mrs. Fenwick, Hornby Hall passed through various hands, until it was purchasied, in 1809 or '10, by Mr. David Murray, a wiealthy retired mer- chant, of Kingston, Jamaica, who died in 1822; and his son John's charming Greek wife, a Miss Wilkinson, is thus described by Lingard, who elsewhere calls her " my little Greek neighbour," in a letter to Walker, of Scarborough (Feb. loth, 1843): " [Mrs, Murray] claims a consul at Smyrna for her grandfather; a Frenchwoman for her mother; Constanti- nople for her birthplace, Greek women for her nurses, servants, etc.; Marseilles for her schooling during three years; Smyrna for her residence afterwards; and the principal Greek in Syros for her brother-in-law." Mr. and Mrs. Murray and their children were to' become Lingard's dear and devoted friends; a path' trodden down in the smaU grass-plot in front of the I 114 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD presbytery door is said to have been made by him in his walks to and from Hornby Hall, for his daily game of whist. Nearer still to the presbytery, almost overshadowinjg. it, stood Hornby, Castle, which had a more chequered history. Francis, fifth earl of Wemyss, sold the castle and estates to John Marsden, of Wennington Hall, in 1789, who remained in possession till his death in 1826. In his latter years Mr. Marslden became feeble in mind, and his agent or steward, George Wright, gained complete ascendancy over him, with the result that Marsden left the whole estate by will to Wright. Admiral Sandford Tatham, cousin of Marsden, disputed the will, and then began the famous Tatham v. Wright case which was to last for twelve years and to pass through seven trials or hearings, at one of which Lin- gard was to give evidence in favoou' of the admiral.' At Tatham's death in 1840, who had finally won his case arid entered into possession in 1838, the castle passed to his relative, Pudsey Dawson, between whom and Lingard a close friendship arose, and lasted until the death of the latter, Pudsey Dawson siurviving him eight years. Only the road separated Lingard's house from' the parish church with its magnificent " Stanley " tower; and its incumbent, the Rev. Mr. Proctor, made up the third of Lingard's near neighbours. His fame as a writer had preceded him; his delightful conversation, the charm of his character and manner soon endeared him to them all. Many, years later^September, 1839 — in reply to a remark of his friend, Walker of Scar- borough, he wrote : " I am anxious to know why you asked me about my old friend the parson. Is there any report respecting our intimacy? Anything about my letting out secrets to BLUNDELL OF INCE BLUNDELL 115 him, or his informing others? From an expression in your last, I should think so; but, if there be, you may reply that it is a lie. He is above eighty: and I believe I may say that he idolizes me." * A passage in the same letter shows the difficulty of getting fish in those days. Walker, living at Scar- borough, occasionally sent his old friend a present of lobsters, of which Lingard would send four to the hall, four to the castle, and two to the parsonage, keeping a few for himself. In answer to Walker's inquiries he says he gets occasional presents of fish from the castle, but it is seldom they come on fish days. " On those days a couple of boiled eggs form my principal dish." Except his poor parishioners, Lingard had no Catholic friends within a distance of eight miles — Mr. John Coulston, his banker, and other families of the old faith in Lancaster being the nearest — while the wealthy and eccentric old bachelor. Squire Blundell, of Ince Blundell, oftten claimed him as a guest, setting his splendid and extensive library at his command, and sending him frequent and lavish presents of game, turkeys, hams, etc., a portion of which was always gallantly ofifered to his " old friend the parson's wife." Lingard was now at liberty to pursue the studies, at first modestly intended for " an abridgement for the use of schools," which culminated into his epoch- making History of England.^ * On the death of Mr. Proctor, in August, 1840, his curate and son-in- law, Mr. Thomas Fogg, succeeded to the incumbency, and he and his wife were almost equally devoted to their opposite neighbour. t Coyne, the Dublin publisher, had written to him at the end of i8og : " Let me know, have you yet finished your abridgment of English History for the use of schools ? . . . A small volume would, I think, take in Ireland, and leave the poisoned Goldsmith to Protestant schools. If you can with convenience abridge the English History to about 400 pages twelves, I think I shall amply compensate you for your labour." Charles Butler had urged Lingard to write a history of the Anglo-Norman Church. He caressed the idea for some time, and finally abandoned it. ii6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD While gathering around him the books and notes and authorities for that work, which necessitated many journeys to the Chetham Library in Manchester, and to Liverpool, his pen was ever ready to serve his cause in the paths of controversy, and the year 1 8 1 3 found him particularly busy. We have seen that Bishop Douglass, in the entry in his joiurnal under date of 1 801, while expressing his grief at the failvure of Pitt's proposals, mentioned with- out adverse comment the ministry's intention that an influence — later known as " the Veto " — should be exer- cised by government on the nomination of Roman Catholic bishops. The " veto question " rapidly be- came a subject of as much hot, not to say furious debate among the Catholics themselves, as had been the "oath" question before 1791. The expired " Catholic Committeie," which had been merged into the " Cisalpine Club," was succeeded in 1808 by the " Catholic Board," with Mr. Edward Jemingham as secretary, established to fiurther the cause of emanci- pation, and which invited all the priests in Great Britain to be members, while placing the foiu: vicars-apostolic upon the standing committee. Bishop Milner, in 1808, had written a defence of the veto in " A Letter to a Parish Priest," in which oc- curred the following words : " I challenge any writer to show that the allowance to government of an exclusive power in presenting to Catho- lic prelacies, // confined to three times, and accompanied each time with the avowal of a well-grounded suspicion of the candidate's loyalty, contains anything either unlawful in itself, or disadvantageous to the Church." He subsequently changed his opinion, retracted his pamphlet, and became the agent, in 1 8 1 o, of the Irish THE "VETO" QUESTION 117 bishops who had declared against the veto, fighting with his usual fierce and passionate energy to guard, as he declared, the independence of the bishops— a posi- tion which was to earn for him the perilous title of the " new Athanasi^s," standing, as he did at last, in opposition to all his brother prelates in England; but in doing which he earned for himself the gratitude and approval of their successors. It is hardly necessary to say that Lingard, who had gained his first knowledge of English life and politics under the auspices of the " CathoUc Committee," whose friends were almost exclusively of the Cisalpine party, was as firm on the other side, and, within the limits of the strictest orthodoxy, — with Charles Butler, its ablest and most redoubtable champion.* During 1 8 1 2 and 1 8 1 3 the excitement was intense, and petitions to parliament for — ^and especially against — Catholic emancipation were poured into both Houses. " How fierce and long," wrote Lord Stanhope, " was the intervening conflict I" between Pitt's failure in 1 801 and the Emancipation Act of 1829. " How much of rancour and ill-will — and not on one side only, but on both^did that conflict leave behind I . . . In 1 80 1 it would have been a compromise between * Nothing distressed Charles Butler more than attacks upon his ortho- doxy. Lingard had been to Stonyhurst — probably his first visii — in the autumn of 1812, and had apparently done his best to put Butler's acts in a good light there. "I am much obliged to you," wrote Butler on the 5'h September, "for the use which you made of my letter. With respect to the bringing my sincerity to the test, I can have no objection to it, and I think it can easily be done. It is only to extract out of my works, or the works im- puted to me, some expressions supposed to be censurable . . . that is, con- trary to faith. ... If any one gentleman of Stonyhurst will have the good- ness to point out such a proposition, I am perfectly sure that he will be satisfied in what I shall say and do in respect to it. I shall consider that in communicating this extract to me he will confer upon me a very great favour. ... I conceive it impossible to conceive of a fairer test or a fairer manner of bringing it forward. I must add that many works have been im- puted to me in which I have no concern whatever, and only know by the title-page." Brit, Mus. MS. 25,127. Plut. CXXXV, A. ii8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD parties; in 1829 it was a struggle and a victory of one party above another. ... It did not comprise any settle- ment of the Roman Catholic clergy, which in 1801 might have been advantageous, and which thirty years later became not only disadvantageous but impossible."* In the month of August, 1812, two Irish eccle- siastics, Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, and Dean Ma- cajrthy, with their agent. Dr. Milner, went to Durham; to meet the other vicars-apostolic in the hope of com- ing to an agreement against the veto, which had been accepted in a celebrated " Fifth Resolution " by the Catholic Board, and which all, Milner excepted, had signed. f The meeting was a failure: the English prelates, with whom was Mr. Gillow, president of Ushaw, would concede nothing but a colourless and absolutely unexceptionable formtila: "We, the under- signed, etc., are all of one faith and one communion," a declaration which Dr. Moylan considered " too vague an answer " to the specific complaints of the Irish bishops. ' Charles Butler wrote to Lingard, 25th July, 181 2: "Dr. Moylan and Dr. Macarthy spent some time in London, and were twice in long conference with Dr. Poynter.J They seemed exceedingly prepossessed in favour of Dr. Milner and against Dr. Poynter; but were evidently struck (probably more than they wished should be seen) with many documents and explanations which Dr. Poynter produced. , . ." "5 September, 181 2. ... I believe the result of the conference at Durham was that the parties left in a wider state of separa- tion than when they met. No concession was made » Life of Pitt, Vol. Ill, p. 281. + See Appendix F. J Dr. Douglass died in May, 1812, an was succeeded by his coadjutor Bishop Poynter. "NO POPERY" CABINET iig by Bishop Foynter, but Dr. Milner conceded that I had not written Dr. Foynter 's letters, which was one of the charges he had brought, and had repeated against Dr. Foynter; and he generally said that he was much con- cerned for any expressions used by him which had hurt the feelings of any one."* Milner seems to have been ever impulsively and generously ready to apologise for the rash statements which — on occasion — he was equally ready to repeat; and the emotional nature of the man is apparent at this time of excitement and difjficij.ty, in his passionate burst of tears at a meeting of Catholic gentlemen in 1810 who, to use his own words, "baited and tor- tured " him to make him consent to the " Fifth Reso- lution." f And again, in 181 3 he threw himself on his knees before two of his brother prelates, to ask their' pardon for an imaginary ofifence.J Two ministries had been overthrown by the Catholic question — ^the first ministry of William Pitt, and the " ministry of all the talents," of which Lord Grenville was the head, and Charles James Fox leader of the House of Comtnons. To them had succeeded a strongly anti- Catholic House of Commons, with the Duke of Portland's "No popery" cabinet in 1807, froni which, on account of ill-health, the Duke had retired in 1809, whien Spencer Perceval, his chan- cellor of the exchequer, succeeded him as premier. On the nth May, 181 2, Perceval was shot by Belling- ham in the lobby of the House of Commons, and Lord Liverpool became prime minister, with fifteen years of office before him, covering one of the most brilliant periods of English history. Canning, who had left the Duke of Portland's ministry, after his duel with Lord * Brit. Mus, MS. 25,127. Plut. CXXXV, A. t Amhurst, Vol. II, p. 35. J Husenbeth, p. 256. 120 LIF;E of JOHN LINGARD -Castlereagli, refused ta joip Lord Liverpool's cabinet, and now declared openly in favour of em'ancipation. Hie brought in a Bill on the 2 2nd June, 1 8 1 2, which was carried by a largie m,ajority — 235 against 106 — in the House of Com'mons, and defeated in th'e Lords by a majority of one ! * The following year, 25th February, 181 3, Grattan opened the memorable campaign for Catholic emanci- pation, and carried his resolution — which contained all that the Catholics could reasonably require — ^by a majority of sixty-seven votes. Unlortxmately, Mr. Can- ning, while declaring that he " cordially agreed " with the bill, thought the Catholics ought to pay for the removal of their disabilities, and introduced two sets of clauses, between the first and second readings, jembody- ing the veto, and which made Grattan's bill, in the eyes of Dr. Milner and all who thought with him', worthless ajid mischievous. Milner arrived in London on the 19th May, and hastily published a " Brief Memorial " which he circulated among the members of parlia- ment; and at the same time vainly endeavoured to induce Bishops Poynter and CoUingridge to join with him in a declaration that a vicar-apostolic was bound to speak openly in opposition to the bill. He believed that if any, two prominent Catholics would go down to the House — ^the bill was to come on in committee that very day. May 24th— and inform' Mr. Grattan * Lord Byron was one of the peers summoned by the opposition "whip." " I was sent for in great haste to a ball," he wrote some years later, "which I confess I quitted somewhat reluctantly, to emancipate five millions of people. I came in late . . . and stood behind the woolsack. Lord Eldon turned round and, catching ray eye, immediately said to a peer, ..." D — n them ! they'll have it now ! . . . The vote that has just come in will give it them." Byron further describes in the " Devil's Walk" : — " And he saw the tear's in Eldon's eyes Because the Catholics would not rise In spite of his tears and prophecies." Lord Campbell's Life of Eldon, p. 516. VEHEMENT CONTROVERSY 121 that the bishops disapproved of the laill, he would stop its progress. The bill was never read a third time. When the clerk read the first clause, the Speaker, Abbot, after- wards Lord Colchester, a strong anti-Catholic, rose in his place and moved that the words " to sit and vote in either House of Parliament, " should be left out of the bill. After a long debate, the House divided and Abbot gained his motion by four votes — 251 against 247. The promoters of the bill then threw it up, and Milner's opposition — which had bieen greater in its, effect than had at first appeared — was bitterly resented by the " Catholic Board."* The vehemence of the controversy can be imagined : that champion of emancipation, the Edinburgh Re- view, in an article on the Bishop of Lincoln's charge to his clergy,f spoke of the bitter period having ar- rived " in which the people must give up some of their darling absurdities," and lamented that the greatest inlpedimients to all amelioration should come from men like the bishop, " to whom the country ought to look for wisdoiri or peaoe." The Protestant writers, among whom Lingard's old adversary, the Rev. Thos. Le Mesurier, Rector pf Newnton Longville, Bucks, was one of the bitterest, are then described as having their pens " up to the feat,her in ink," busy with " passion, pamphlet, or pugnacity." With regard to the veto: * Two years later Canning said in the House of Commons, Ijth February, 1815 : " In 1813 we might have carried a bill containing everything but seats in Parliament, but we threw it up in a pet. I have never ceased to regret that hasty determination. ' Ex illo fluere, ac retro sublapsa referri Spes Danaum.' From that moment the Catholic question began to lose ground." t Edinburgh Review, February, 1813, Vol. XXI, p. 93. Charge of George Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, to his clergy, published 1812. 122 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " We sincerely wish the Catholics would cede this point; but we cannot be astonished at their reluctance to admit the interference of a Protestant Prince with their Bishops. What would his lordship [Dr. Tomline] say to the interference of any Catholic power with the appoint- ment of the English Sees? . . . It is impossible to avoid saying a word upon the humiliating and disgusting, but at the same time most edifying spectacle which has lately been exhibited by the anticatholic addressers. That so great a number of persons should have been found ... to rush forward with clamours in favour of intolerance . . . affords a more humiliating and discouraging picture of the present spirit of the country than anything else that has occurred in our remembrance. . . ." So calmly judicial and dispassionate v^eie all Lin- gard's printed expressioas of opinion, that it is almost a relief to find him: able to rap out, iu his private correspondence, a round objurgation against a specially ofifensive antagonist. " I have just received Le Mesu- rier's vsrinter address," he wrote to the Rev. Ed. Walsh, 4th March, 1813. "What a positive lying scoundrel he is. I hope Mr. Butler, as the quarrel is between them, will answer him." " I hope before this you have seen my review of Anti- catholic tracts. Booker [his publisher] drove a hard bargain with me, and would only allow me twenty copies for myself. ... I am happy to find that it is approved in London, and a cheap edition for 6d. has already been published. Besides that. Lord Holland has requested me to allow him to have a thousand copies printed for dis- tribution." * * Joseph Booker, of Bond Street, Lingard's publisher, had written to him on the 26th February : " I had the pleasure of writing to you the day before yesterday ; since which, having been sent to by Lord Holland on the score of the pamphlet, I have to trouble you again. His lordship approving very much of your work, and conceiving that a very cheap edition (at 4d. or 6d. ) for distribution gratis among the dissenters would be of service to the LORD HOLLAND'S TRIBUTE 123 The same letter describes the way anticatholic peti- tions were got up. " In this county anticatholicism could make no pro- gress. It began and stopped at Manchester and Warring- ton. At the former place . . . during the night printed papers were posted up stating that a petition for signature was lying at a stationer's shop, and in the morning persons were placed in the street who almost compelled each passenger to go into the shop. They even got Mr. Sadler, the priest at Trafford [Mr. Thomas Trafford's seat] into it, but he was not so simple as to sign the petition. . . ," Lord Holland's tribute to thie value of Lingard's help was foUow.ed a few weeks later by the form'al thanks of the Catholic Board, in a meeting held at the Earl of Shrewsbury's house in Stanhope Street, the 26th' April, 181 3: " Rt. Hon. the Lord Dormer in the Chair. Resolved unanimously That the thanks of the Board of Catholics of Great Britain be given to the Rev. J. Lingard for his zealous and successful defence of the Catholic Church in his many literary productions, and more particularly in his last able work, entitled A Review of certain Anti-Catholic Publica- tions. Dormer, Chairman. Ed. Jerningham, Secretary." A very different scene took place at the same board on the foBowing ,29th May, when Dr. Milner, — who had given dire offence by using the words " false cause, he wishes to have the first part, i.e. all that concerns the two Bishops, printed separate for that purpose. ... I informed his lordship that I was confident there would be no difficulty, your object being principally the cause. ... I intend at present to print the whole as it stands, except for the 1000 copies which Lord Holland proposes to take, and offer the others to the (Catholic) Board for their distribution. ..." 124 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD brethren " in the " Brief Memorial " he had sent to members of parliament a few days previously, — on being asked by the chairimtin to, point out whom he meant by " false brethren," aggravated the case by pointing to Mr. Butler, who was sitting at the table, with the words, "There's Charles Butler there." A state of wild ex- citenfent ensued, in the midst of which a vote of thanks to Butler was passed, with the declaration that the charge against him was a " gross calumny." The next resolution — ^that Dr. Milner cease to be a miember of the private board — was carried with but two dissen- tients, Mr. Bodenham, of Rotherwas, and Mr. Weld, of Lulworth, who followed Milnter out of the room'. The bishop's partirtg words were, " Gentlemen, you consider me imfit for your compajiy on earth, may God make me fit for your company in heaven."* * Husenbeth, p. 236. CHAPTER VII THE struggle for emancipation, the strife surround- ing the veto, and other lesser questions, made it increasingly necessary that the Laity's Directory — the solitary yearly Catholic periodical — should be sup- plemented by some other organ than the expensive pamphlets, in which the various parties were compelled to express the views they desired to make public. A scheme for a quarterly review had been broached as early as 1809, and was strongly advocated by Charles Butler who, in sending the prospectus to Lingard at Ushaw (23rd Nov.) remarked: " I see your respected name mentioned in it. It would give me great pleasure to concur in any publication in which you take an active part. From the general tone of the enclosed, I suspect that this is not the case. . . . The unlimited controul which it gives to the Bishops appears to me very objectionable : and I should hope the Bishops will disavow it, for if they do not it will make them responsible for everything which the periodical con- tains. The idea however of a quarterly publication is a good one, and I wish to see it carried into execution on an enlarged and liberal plan. If it were known that yourself and one or two other respectable gentlemen conducted it, there can be no doubt of its meeting with general ap- probation. Permit me therefore to suggest it to you. . . . That the work now projected, unless it have your en- couragement, will fall, stillborn, from the press, I have 125 126 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD no doubt. I know nothing of its authors; but suspect it is intended to proceed from the Milner school. . . ." * Lingard was too busy, too far away from the scene of action to take the active part, without which, ,in Butler's opinion, no scheme for a Catholic organ could be successful, and the plan dropped. It was renewed in 1 8 1 3, and carried into effect in the notable Orthodox Journal, of which the first number appeared on July. 1st, a monthly periodical which curiously fulfilled two of the prognostications in the above letter. It was to be tacitly disavowed by all the English bishops save one: it was not only to "proceed from the Milner! school," as Butler had foreseen, but was to be Dr. Milner 's special organ, in which, under various signa- tures, he was to write the vehement and passionate attacks upon Bishop Poynter and his other opponents on the veto question, which were to cause the suspen- sion of the jotnnal, and to bring the direct censure of the Court of Rome upon himself, f Dr. Milner's denunciations of Lingard's first book — the Anglo-Saxon Church — had of necessity remained in MS.: the pages of the Orthodox Journal were to give his strictures on Lingard's coming History of England a wider circulation. Meanwhile, ftirther fuel to the flames of strife be- tween " vetoists " and " non-vetoists " was furnished by a certain rescript from Rome which raised what was * Letters of Charles Butler, British Museum MS. , 25, i27,Plut. CXXXV, A. t The editor of the Orthodox Journal was William Eusebius Andrews (1773-1839), a "hard-working, hard-reading, not unsuccessful Norwich man," lately arrived in London. He had filled the post of editor of the Norfolk Chronicle. As vehement and uncompromising as Milner himself, with a combative nature that enjoyed hard hitting, his editorial notes supported and emphasised his chiefs most aggressive pronouncements. Under various names, and with various interruptions, \ivt Journal struggled on for thirty years. (See "A Pioneer of Catholic Tournalism," Rev. E. Burton, Ushaw Magazine, December, 1901.) THE "QUARANTOTTI DISPUTE" 127 soon known as the " great Quarantotti dispute." Dur- ing the captivity of Pope Pius VII, at Fontainebleau,— from 1809 until the month of January, 18 14,— all the cardinals had been expelled from Rome; and, .with the permission of the aU-powerful Napoleon, the carry- ing on of the business of the Church was entrusted to Monsignor Quarantotti, vice-prefect of Propaganda. To him, therefore, had the question of the bill before parliament been referred by Dr. Poynter and the Arch- bishop of Dublin, and on the i6th February, 18 14, he addressed a rescript to the former bishop saying, that having taken the advice of the most learned pre- lates and divines, and the matter having been dis- cussed in a special congregation, it was decreed: " That Catholics may, with satisfaction and gratitude, accept and embrace the bill which was last year presented for their emancipation, in the form in which your lord- ship has laid it before us. One point only requires some explanation; and that is, the second part of the oath, by which the clergy is so restrained, as not to be per- mitted to hold any correspondence with the sovereign pontiff and his ministers, which may, directly or indirectly, subvert, or in any way disturb, the protestant govern- ment, or church. . . . Now, should a catholic convert any protestant, he might be deemed guilty of perjury; as, by such conversion, he might seem, in some sort, to disturb the protestant church. Understood in this sense, the oath cannot be lawfully taken, as being repugnant to the catholic faith. If, on the other hand, it be the meaning of the legislators — that the ministers of the catholic church are not forbidden to preach, instruct, and give counsel, but are only prohibited from disturbing the protestant church or government by violence and arms, or evil artifices of whatever kind, this is just, and entirely consonant to our principle. . . . That the king should desire to be certified of the loyalty of such as are pro- 128 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD moted to a bishopric or deanery . . . that he should likewise appoint a committee to enquire into their moral conduct, and make a report to his Majesty, as your lord- ship has given us to understand, etc. etc. All this, as it regards only what is within the competence of civil au- thority, may be deserving of every toleration. It is highly proper that our prelates should be agreeable and accept- able to the King. . . . For a bishop, as the lapostle teaches (ist epistle to Timothy, iii. 7), should have a good report of them who are without. , . . On these accounts, by the authority vested in us, we allow that those who are designed for a bishopric or deanery, and are proposed by the clergy, be admitted or rejected by the King, according to the proposed bill. ... If the candidates be rejected, others shall be pro- posed, who may be pleasing to his Majesty. . . . We are well persuaded that your wise government, while it is intent on preserving public security, will, by no means, exact that the catholics should depart from their religion; nay, is rather pleased that they faithfully adhere to it; for this holy and divine religion is friendly to public authority, gives stability to thrones, and makes subjects obedient, faithful, and emulous of their country's wel- fare. . . . We therefore exhort all, in the name of the Lord, and especially the bishops, to lay aside contention; and, for the edification of others, unanimously to adopt the same sentiments, that there may be no room for schism . . . but that, if the bill shall be passed, by which the catholics shall be freed from the penal restrictions by which they are now held, they not only embrace it with entire satis- faction, but express the strongest sentiments of gratitude to his Majesty ... for so great a benefit; and by their conduct prove themselves worthy of it. . . ." Feeling raji far too high in the two camps for the above rescript's pacifying message to produce its de- sired effect. If it filled the veto party with contenfj VETOISTS AND NON-VETOISTS 129 it so irritated their opponents that the attatcks of Bishop Mihier and his allies redoubled in violence; while they escaped the odium of insubordination by denying Monsignor Quarantotti's powers. Although he had expressly described himself in the preamble as " invested with fuU pontifical powers," and " placed over the concerns of the sacred missions," he was declared by the non-veto partisans to have " only the ordinary powers of the congregation," and that " his rescript was irregular and of no authority from the beginning."* And Dr. Milner afterwards wrote that it had been obtained by the Rev. Paul Macpherson, president of the Scotch College in Rome, " through a series of gross falsehoods and malicious representa- tions, "f Pope Pius VII, who had been released from captivity, in January, made a solemn entry into Rome on the 24th May, 1 8 14, and early in the following year Dr. Poynter determined to go thither, and defend himself against Bishop Milner 's attacks. J In a long Apologia, dated Rome, 15th March, 18 15, and containing fifty- one counts, he stated the various accusations brought against him, and refuted them one by one. Before this document could be taken into consideration, a revolutionary outbreak forced the Pope to fly to Genoa, and it was from that city that Cardinal Litta, prefect of Propaganda, wrote to Dr. Poynter (26th April, 1 81 5) informing him that " His Holiness will feel no hesitation in allowing those, to whom it appertains, to present to the King's ministers a list of candidates, in order that, if any of them should be obnoxious or suspected, the government might im- * Husenbeth's Life of Milner, pp. 268, 269. + Manet's Supplementary Memoir, p. 218. i Bishop Milner had himself gone to Rome immediately after the Pope's Fgturn from Fontainebleau, 130 LIF£ OF JOHN LINGARD mediately point him out, so that he might be expunged, — care however being taken to leave a sufficient number for his Holiness to choose from it, individuals whom he might deem best qualified in the Lord for governing the vacant churches." * This decision was the more important, that Dr. Milner had fully stated his own views to the Pope and cardinals a few months earlier. Thus we find all the authorities, including that of the Court of Rome, ranging themselves on the side of the veto : and yet it is not impossible that Milner, passionate and impulsive, with his random statements and almost irresponsible methods of procedure, his' retractations and repetitions of the retracted offence, his reckless grasp at any, missile to fling |at an opponent, had the surer instinct, — the attribute of genius, in- explicable and undeniable — ^he intmtive sense and fore- warning that the independence of his Church in Eng- land was a greater boon than State patronage and State emolument, a greater boon even than the eman- cipation for which his people impatiently and justly, yearned. The intentions of the government in 1 8 1 5 were cer- tainly benevolent. Charles Butler wrote that he was " perfectly convinced that, if the government were in possession of the veto, the administration of it would be so slight that the existence of it would seldom be per- ceived and never gall. He has never met with a member of either house of parliament . . . who did not ex- plicitly avow his conviction that, in the project of the veto, the views of Lord Castlereagh towards the catho- lics were both kind and honourable; ... a vetoistical arrangement would be both a prudent and an innocuous propitiation, a wise and lawful sacrifice for emancipation. * Butler's Hist. Mem., Vol. IV, p. 173. DR. KIPLING AND LINGARD 131 As such he wishes, that if it be insisted upon, it should be accepted. Of this he is quite certain, that those who proffer it mean us well." * Of the truth of this there can be no doubt, and yet the political history, of the nineteenth century fur-, nishes more than one example of occasions, when the position of a salaried Roman Catholic clergy in Eng- land would have been almost tmtenable, and full of bitterness and humiliation for their flocks and for them- selves. The attitude of certain dignitaries of the Church of England towards their Catholic fellow-countrymen is amusingly set forth in a short correspondence which occurred at this moment between Dr. Kipling, Dean of Peterborough, and Lingard. The latter had pub-i lished some Strictures on Professor Marsh's Compara-\ tlve view of the Churches of England and Rome, and Dr. Kipling, in a lengthy letter, dated The Deanery, Peterborough, May 1 9th, 1 8 1 5, gravely informs himi that his expressions " the new Church of England," and " the modern Church of England " render him " amen- able to a Court of Justice." If, however, Lingard willi assure Dr. Kipling that he will within a reasonable time publish a vindication of " this defamatory lan- guage," the latter will defer prosecution until the public has had time to peruse it, and the dean's reply. If Lingard's vindication is complete, to the satisfaction of the general public, Dr. Kipling will " make a, re- - cantation and cease to be a member of the Established Church "; if it be thought to be defective, its author will be smnmoned to answer for his " offensive de- meanour in Westminster Hall." * Hist. Memoirs, Vol. IV, pp. 256, 257, published in 1822, seven years before the granting of Catholic Emancipation. 132 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Lingard's answer was as follows : " Rev. Sir, — I received your first letter about a week after I had read it in some of the public prints, and I conceived I had answered it sufficiently by ordering The Strictures on Dr. Marsh's Comparative View, etc., to be advertised in the same prints. That tract, you will allow me to observe, has now been published several months, and in it I have shown that the principle which in the Comparative View is pronounced to be the foundation of the Church of England, has been assumed gratuitously, and has never been, and never can be proved. Until therefore some writer, whether Professor Marsh or the Dean of Peterborough matters not, shall have refuted my reasoning, I conceive myself entitled to conclude not merely that the Church of England as by law established is a new Church, but that also the creed which it has adopted is a new creed." The Dean of Peterborough took no further proceed- ings. On the 30th May, 181 6, Sir Henry Parnell's motion on the Irish Catholic petition was negatived in thja House of Commons by a majority of 81; on the 8th June Lord Donoughmore's motion in the House pf Lords, on a similar petition was lost by a majority of 26.* On the 25th June, Sir John Cox Hippesley, the firm but not always judicious friend of the Catholics, brought up " the Report of the select committee appointed to * Butler wrote of Sir Henry Parnell : " Manly, discreet, firm and conciliating, he always advocated their [English and Irish Catholics'] cause on the genuine principles of civil and religious liberty, and with a full knowledge of their case, both in its general and minutest bearings. His regular attendance in Parliament, and his perfect acquaintance with its powers, enabled him to render the catholics the most important services. On some occasions, he stood almost single — in some, first ; and in all, he took a distinguished part." (Butler, Hist. Mem., Vol. IV, p. 274.) In the House of Lords, the Bishop of Norwich (Dr. Henry Bathurst) took up the cause of the Catholics, earning "the gratitude and veneration ... of every Catholic of the united empire." {Ibid., p. 276,) REPLY TO SIR J. C. HIPPESLEY 133 inquire into the laws and ordinances of foreign states, regulating the intercourse between their Roman Catholic subjects and the See of Rome." To this report Bishop Poynter invited Lingard to write a reply. Poynter had been Lingard's prefect of studies at Douay, and a strong mutual affection and respect subsisted between them, Lingard's pen being ever at the service of the much-harassed bishop.* After asking for a copy of the report, and to be favoured with Dr. Poynter's ideas on the different matters in it, Lingard continues in a letter dated 28th Januafry, 181 7: " It seems to me desirable to ascertain both how far the statements in it are correct and how far they can apply to this country. The first of these two objects is not in my power; for the second (at least, to elucidate the subject satisfactorily) I ought to know what is the real nature of the bulls and rescripts, etc., to which the regium exequatur applies. On both heads I should hope your lordship may acquire information from some of your friends in London, in Paris, in Lisbon and elsewhere. Lastly, I could wish to know whether there be no danger of a prosecution for animadverting on the report of a committee of the House of Commons." After studying the report and various points sug- gested by Dr. Poynter, Lingard writes again, February loth: " It appears to me useless and imprudent to undertake the refutation of the principles that underlie the Enchi- ridion of Rechberger.f It would be useless, as no argu- ments could possibly persuade protestants of the falsehood * Wm. Poynter, Bishop of Halia in fartibus, born 1762, died 1827, at 4 Castle Street, Holborn. After his death. Bishop Milner expressed unbounded veneration of his piety and virtues. t George Rechberger, born 1758, advocate and doctor of laws. The work referred to is his Handbtuh des osterreichischm Kirchenrechts, translated into Latin by himself. It was decidedly heterodox. (Hurter, Nomenclato} Literarius. ) 134 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD of principles so nearly akin to their own: and imprudent, as the attempt might perhaps induce some catholic to undertake his defence. . . . 2nd: I would acknowledge that every powerful catholic state, with the exception of Bavaria, has been for some centuries at least in posses- sion of the nomination of bishops, and the exercise of the placet. This, I believe, cannot be denied; and the con- trary assertion in Bishop Milner's pamphlet * is com- pletely refuted by the documents in the report. But I would shew that nothing of this can apply to England, because i° bishops here have nothing more than their spiritual character, there they are temporal lords, 2° The sovereigns there claim the nomination on the right of patronage, as the bishoprics were founded by their pre- decessors, here there are no foundations at all. 3° There the sovereigns are catholics, here he is a protestant. Now it is unreasonable that the head of one religion should be the person to appoint the chief pastors of another, and it is against the spirit of the English law, which deprives catholic patrons of the exercise of their right to present to protestant benefices." After citing the differences in the cases of Russia and Prussia: " I would then boldly assert that there is no evidence of a prince, either catholic or protestant, nominating bishops when they have no temporal privileges or emolu- ments annexed to their spiritual character. I would then proceed to show in a similar manner that the exercise of the 'Placet' cannot apply to this country." Then come questions regarding the laws of the Emperor Joseph and the negotiations actually proceed- ing between Vienna and the Holy See: " Bishop Milner says that the chapters in Polish Prussia nominate. Mr. Rose, in the report, that the king nomi- nates to Culen, Posen, and Gaesen, the bishoprics in * Or/Ai>dox/ourna/,]a.nua.ty,lSiy. (Hnseahsth's Life of Milner, p. ^S-) ADVISES DR. POYNTER 135 question. Must I not admit it? . . . When I have finished the treatise (it will be but a small one) I will forward it to your lordship for revision. If you think it can do good, it may be printed. If not, it may be given to the flames." Asking for furthier " laws and decrees " the .following week Lingard adds : " Bishop Milner has frequently appealed to them; but I cannot rely implicitly on his quotations. ... I am sorry to see how he repeats his former misrepresentations. I think Keating ought to add that he does not think himself responsible for such statements.* Some such thing should be done, or posterity may believe them without suspecting that they were contradicted." The anxieties of the moment are reflected in Lin- gard's next letter, dated ,22nd February, written in obedience to Dr. Poynter's commands, in which he gives his opinion, " which I should not otherwise have presumed to do," he modestly adds, as to the course which' the bishop shotild take in the crisis : " If there be a probability that any measure will be brought into parliament this session, founded on the report, I think it desirable that the bishops should pre- viously make known their sentiments. f But in what manner should this be done? By pastorals, or resolu- tions, or a petition to parliament?" After stating his objections to the two first methods, he continues: " For my part I have always wished that the catholic prelates would during the discussion present a petition to Parliament, if it were merely to make themselves of consequence, and take the settlement of arrangements out of the hands of laymen. It seems to me that a petition * Keating, the publisher, of Duke Street, Grosvenor Square. t Henry Grattan raised the question in the House of Commons on the 9th May, 1817, when it was negatived by 24. In the House of Lords, Lord Donoughmore's motion was lost by 142 votes to 90. 136 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD would have that effect. Supposing, however, that you wish to declare your sentiments at an earlier stage, I have drawn up a few resolutions on the opposite page. . . . You may think that the fourth resolution is not sufficiently strong: but the same points are now the subject of nego- tiation between the courts of Rome and Brussels, and I have a suspicion that both points will be in a great measure conceded by Rome. ... It would therefore be imprudent to assert that you cannot assent to arrange- ments, to which it may afterwards be proved that the pope himself has assented," The new sovereign, William I, was a Protestant, so the prelates of Belgium had sent proposals to the con- gress of Vienna. Lingard asks: " Would it not be advisable to procure the advocacy, if possible, of some distinguished member of parliament? Would not Lord Castlereagh present your petition if you determined on such a measure? Would not Brougham support it if asked? He wishes to be of import- ance. . . ." * * The resolutions, which the Catholic bishops did not adopt, were as follows : — " 1° That it is our duty in the present circumstances to warn the Roman Catholics of Great Britain against the opinion, that they may conscientiously assent to regulations respecting the concerns of their religion, on the mere ground that similar regulations have occasionally been made and enforced in foreign states. 11° That among the regulations made in foreign states by arbitrary sovereigns, there are some . . . which are inconsistent with the doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church. Ill° That regulations which concern the civil establishment of the Catholic Church in other countries, ate totally inappUcable to the state of the Catholic Church in this country, where it has no civil establishment whatsoever. IV° That as official guardians of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, we cannot surrender the nomination of Catholic bishops to a prince who is by law the head of a different religious establishment : nor ... to the interruption of that free intercourse on ecclesiastical matters, which according to her canons ought to subsist between the chief and the subordinate pastors of the Roman Catholic Church. V° That in framing these resolutions we have been actuated by an imperious sense of duty joined to a spirit of the most perfect conciliation : that our only anxiety is to secure the integrity and permanence of our religious faith and discipline, and that any arrangement which . . . does not endanger these important interests, will be met by us with cheerfulness and gratitude." VISIT TO ROME 137 That the resolutions were lost through Dr. Milner's refusal to subscribe them appears from Lingard's next letter, dated Hornby, 26th March, 181 7: "... I am not surprised that Dr. Milner has acted as he has done. Though he affects so much independence, the fact is, I suspect, that his conduct has placed him in a situation in which he has none. He has dwindled into a mere tool of the Irish bishops. He may endeavour to influence them: but he must at last adopt their opinions. As then your resolutions do not favour their plan of domestic nomination, he cannot subscribe to them. ..." * After the Napoleonic wars, Europe was again free and open to English travellers, who flocked abroad with all the greater eagerness for the long enforced abstention from so favoirrite a pursuit. Lingard had remained in close friendship with the Stourton family from his return to England in 1793. His former pupil and the companion of his escape from Doimy, William Joseph Stourton, succeeded his father in 1 8 1 6, and had married in 1800 Catherine, second daughter of Thomas Weld, of Lul worth Castle. When, there- fore, in 1 8 1 7 he and his wife projected a journey to Italy, they invited Lingard to accompany them. He, on his side, was anxious to go to Rome. He had now been at work eleven years upon his History of England, under conditions before which the student of to-day might quail : the reading-room at the British Museum was not in existence, and access to the manuscripts and documents in the State Paper Office, then lodged in the Tower, was hedged in by wearisome and hampering regulations. As in the case * Lingard's treatise on Sir J. C. Hippesley's report was published by Booker, of Bond Street. In the postscript to a letter of the loth March to Dr. Poynter, he wrote : " I fear if my name be put to the work, it may be thought disrespectful to the committee. I should not at all like to be called to the bar of the House." 138 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD of the Anglo-Saxon Church Lingard took nothing upon trust, and personally, or through reliable friends, ex- hausted every original soturce then known to exist in his pursuit of authentic evidence, fTolfilling the promise in the preface to the first octavo edition of his work : " I did not hesitate at the commencement of my labours to impose on myself a severe obligation, from which I am not conscious of having on any occasion materially swerved; to take nothing on trust; to confine my re- searches, in the first instance, to original documents and the more ancient writers; and only to consult the modern historians when I had satisfied my own judgment and composed my own narrative. . . . These restrictions would indeed add to the toil of the writer; but they promised to stamp the features of accuracy and novelty upon his work. How far I have succeeded must be for the public to determine, but this I trust will be admitted, that whatever may be in other respects the defects of this history, it may fairly claim the merit of research and originality. . . . It has been my constant endeavour to separate myself as much as possible from every party; to stand as it were aloof, the unconcerned spectator of the passing events; and to record them fairly in these pages as they came in review before my eyes. That they should always appear so to others, in the same light in which they ap- peared to me, I cannot expect; but before the reader accuse me of prejudice let him be assured that he is free from prejudice himself." In the letter last quoted to Dr. Poynter, Lingard adds: " I have now a request to make to your lordship. I lately received a letter from Lord Stourton saying that he, in company with Lady Stourton and his younger brother, were going to make a rapid tour of Italy, and that there was a place for me in the carriage if I chose ARRIVES IN PARIS 139 to accept of it. That he should set ofif immediately after Easter and return in August. Bishops Gibson and Smith think I should accept the offer, which I have accordingly done: and have to request that your lordship would give me a letter to Mr. Macpherson * at Rome, or Cardinal Litta, or any other person who might be useful in get- ting me admission to the MSS. of the Vatican." On Thursday, the 24th April, 18 17, after what Lin- gar d notes in his journal as "a passage of less than four hours," the travellers landed at Calais and lodged at " QuiHac's [formerly Dessin's] superb inn." It hap- pened to be the anniversary of the arrival of Louis XVIII, and Lingard copied the inscription on the stone pillar erected by the inhabitants of Calais on the spot where the king had landed: " Le XXIV Avril, S.M. Louis XVIII Debarqua vis-^-vis de cette Colonne, Et fut enfin rendu h. I'amotu: des Frangais. Pour en perpdtuer le souvenir La Ville de Calais a 6lev6 ce monument." "We found English cavalry," writes Lingard, " in almost every village between Calais and Montreuil," and like all English travellers of the time, he is struck by the revival of religious fervour: " In all the churches on the road, I found persons at their devotions at all hours of the day "—convents restored, the surviving nuns who had retired to their relations during the revolution " have uniformly reassembled, and returned to their former profession." At St. Denis — " The bones of Louis XVI and his Queen are deposited in the cell destined by Bona- parte for the Imperial Family." Paris — " Its noble palaces and public places, its high and dirty houses, its narrow and filthy streets." " At the Luxembourg I saw the spot where Ney was shot.f The moment he * President of the Scotch College in Rome and agent of the English bishops. t On the 7th December, 1815. 140 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD passed the gate he was told to stand against the wall on the left hand, and shot immediately. ... I obtained leave from the superioress of the Carmelite nuns in the Rue Vaugirard, to look into the chapel at the end of what was formerly the garden of the Carmes. Here a hundred and fifty were massacred. It is not so large as my chapel. The floor and part of the walls are still covered with blood. The place was not cleaned at the time, and now nothing is done to it, except sweeping it now and then. Mass is said in it once a year only, on the anniversary of the massacre. It is called the Chapelle des Martyrs. . . . I dined at Lamelle's. I had half a bottle of wine for I fr., a potage, an apple and figs, almonds and raisins for 30 sols more. . . . Everything was very good. . . . Sir C. Clifford is convinced that the king is in general much beloved. If external signs were a proof, I have spen several. The lower classes still believe that Bonaparte was sent from Elba by the English ; and that we have him now at St. Helena for the same purpose— we keep him as a rod in pickle for them. So I was told myself." At Fontainebleau — " The apartments are as they were fitted up by Bonaparte with this exception, that everywhere L. and the fleur-de-lys are substituted for N. and the bees. The King has never slept in Bona- parte's state bed, but in the adjoining room. ... In the gallery of Henry IV, Bonaparte had placed statues of his best soldiers; they are all removed. We also saw the Pope's apartments during his confinement for eighteen months. . . . May 3rd. — ^The foundations of the walls of Sens still remain of Roman architecture. The stones are much larger than any I ever saw used in England. DESCENT INTO ITALY 141 ... I visited its Cathedral, a Gothic building not un- handsome. It preserves many antiquities. It was here St. Thomas of Canterbury met Alexander III. In a chapel dedicated to him is a painting of their interview. I put on his chasuble, to shew the ladies the form it bore anciently."* By Auxerre and Avalons, where " the wheel horses fell, and by their weight broke the pole of the car- riage," an accident which caused three hours' delay, the travellers reached Lyons via Macon on the 7th. " The place where so many royalists were murdered is across the wooden bridge over the Rhone. . . . What struck me most," writes Lingard, " was the coolness of the houses, compared with the suffocating heat of the air. I attribute it to the great height of the rooms, the almost perpendicular altitude of the sun, which strikes principally on thte roofs, and the care of the inhabitants to exclude the heat by external blinds and double windows." The descent into Italy, the scenery " of which no words can convey an adequate idea," are rapidly and vividly described; and it is interesting to note how " the stupendous work " of Napoleon, the cutting of the great road through the mountains, wrung from the Englishman's pen, who, on all other occasions had termed him " Bonaparte " the appellation of " Em- peror." " It does honotir to the late Emperor, as do the numerous and stupendous works which he erected through the whole passage of the Alps, to facilitate communication between France and Italy." With two additional horses, and with the snow stand- ing on each side of the road higher than the roof of the carriage, the hospice on Mont Cenis, " originally * Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Tempest, of Broughton Hall, Yorkshire, had 'oined the party. 142 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD established by Charlemagne and re-established by, Bona- part," was reached. " We saw," notes the journal, "the rooms in which Pius VII staid three days, on his road from the dungeon of Savona to Fontainebleau. He was so ill that he received the last sacraments there. . . . On our departure [after an excellent dinner] Lord Stourton desired me to give them [the monks] three louis. They refused positively to accept it. At last I prevailed on them to undertake to distribute it among the poor of the neighbourhood. The snow was above the windows of the room, in which we dined. Joining, to the hospice, he [Napoleon] had erected a large church and barracks for a regiment of infantry, and round the whole a strong wall with innumerable loopholes to defend the pass." By Susa and Rivoli, Turin was reached before the middle of May, and in the royal palaoe, the travellers saw the paintings just returned from Paris, which Napoleon had looted, " comprising works by Rubens, Michael Angelo, Titian, Guido, Vandyke, etc. etc." Among the books of devotion in the king's closet, Lin- gar'd remarked a translation of the Bible by Martini in fourteen or fifteen handsome volumes.* Unfortunately an epidemic disorder of the most dangerous kind was raging at Turin, as well as at Parma and other places the traveUers had intended to visit, so they resolved to make a rapid journey as far as Milan, and thence to Bologna. " At Parma," writes Lingard, " I had a long discourse with a physician, from whom I learned that the disease which so universally prevailed was a typhus fever, supposed to arise from bad nourishment. It was thought at first not to be contagious, but dif- ferent opinions began to prevail and lazarettos were prepared out of the towns, to which the sick were con- * Victor Emmanuel I, King of Sardinia. THE DUCHESS OF PARMA 143 veyed. Those attacked seldom lived iour days, if it proved fatal at all." The fallen Emperor's consort, Marie - Louise of Austria, was then Duchess of Parma. Lingard sees her bust and portrait in the royal palace, she herself being in the cotmtry, and finds her " far from hand- some. Her nose is pinched in at the nostrils. She appieared thin; but we were told that within the last few months she was become almost a skeleton." * From Bologna, where an " Ecce Homo " by a pupil of Raphael's, " the composed and patient dignity which the painter had given to otur Saviour, brought at the first sight tears into " Lingard's eyes, through Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia to Loretto. "The treasury [of the Santa Casa] was despoiled by the French. But they shew you rich chalices given by the Pope, Joseph Bonaparte, his wife, the Queen of Spain, etc. At Sara- valle the accommodations were infamous. Some passed the night in chairs. I passed it on the barouche seat' locked up in the washhouse. We had great difficulty to reach this place [Valumare] as the four stallions that drew us refused to proceied. It was no pleasant thing to see these creatures stand stock still on the brink of a precipice 300 yards deep, then set off at full gallop, kicking at each other and threatening to master their driver. The road next morning [May 23rd] was through a most romantic country, and near Foligno we met that romantic character. Lord Byron, on horse- back. May 25th. — ^This was a day of adventures. One of our horses fell, and lay with his head imder his side. He was pronounced to be dead: but a sudden jerk put his neck in again, and he soon recovered. Soon after- wards our horses refused to move. . . . Fortunately * Marie-Louise died at Vienna in 1847. 144 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD a person passed with three horses, which, added to the other foiir, dragged us forward. Once we were obliged to add four oxen to our four horses. About twenty miles from Rome the aspect of the country began to alter. We saw nothing but moorg and numerous flocks of sheep. At six we gained the first sight of the Eternal City, and at eight took upt oiu" residence in the Piazza di Spagna." Rome had been described in so many books, that Lingard only notes "a few particulars." To him, the consistent enemy of Gothic architecture, it was natural that St., Peter's shoidd exceed anything that he " could have; imagined," and that the church which he admired next was the great cruciform St. Maria degli Angela. Of the buildings and museums he says, " It is in these buildings and collections that the popes display their magnificence. Frugal in their diet, unostentatious in their dress, what money they spend they invariably spend in the encouragement of the fine arts: and the present pope [Pius VII], even in his depressed circum- stances, pursues the same line as his predecessors. He has filled with antiquities a gallery a quarter of a mile long." Lingard's purpose in going to Rome was to consult the MSS. in the Vatican before publishing the first volumes of his history. The difficulties he encountered are described in his first letter to Dr. Poynter. Bishop Milner, during his sojourn in Romip in 1 814 had — so far as it lay in his power — inspired an adverse opinion against his brother prelate, which Dr. Poynter's fine vindication in his Apologia had not yet entirely dis- pelled.* With regard to Lingard, Dr. Milner— no * Writing immediately before his own departure for Rome, Lingard had assured Dr. Poynter that he could easily conceive what antagonists his lord- ship had to fight against at Rome, and that he would be happy if he could be of any service, adding, with his accustomed modesty ; "As I shall be in the A COOL RECEPTION 145 doubt from as strict a sense of duty — ^was compelled to trust to his pen in the matter of warnings and denun- ciation. In a letter dated "Rome, June 17th, 18 17," Lingard tells Dr. Poynter: " I have hitherto been of no use either to your lord- ship or to myself. Mr. Macpherson acquainted Cardinal Litta [prefect of Propaganda] with our arrival on the Monday [May 26th], and received from him an order to introduce us on the Wednesday as the cardinal wras going to the Pope at Castel Gandolpho. At the same time the cardinal said much in my commendation in consequence of your lordship's letter, and offered his assistance to obtain access for me to any libraries, to get passages copied, etc. etc. Full of expectation I accom- panied Lord Stourton and Mr. Macpherson on the Wed- nesday. He was indeed civil but extremely cool. He listened to what was said in commendation of your lord- ship, but it seemed not to make much impression. To Mr. Macpherson he never opened his mouth. I thanked him for his offers, and expressed my hope of receiving from him great assistance in the prosecution of my his- tory: he only observed that he had read Hume, and that Dr. Milner had answered his calumnies in the History of Winchester and the Letters to a Prebendary, I got my work \The Anglo-Saxon ChurcK\ bound in morocco, with his arms on it, and some days after presented it to him, with my remarks on the report.* ... I went alone. All my efforts were ineffectual. I gave him the extracts from the Orthodox Journal: he said he expected them but changed the subject. I told him that I lived 300 miles from London, and was not so well furnished with assistance as I could wish, but that at your request I had written against the report. He immediately replied company of Lord Stourton, that circumstance may give to my efforts some weigiit which they would not otherwise have." (Letter dated "Hornby, 1st April, 1817.") * Lingard's treatise on Sir J. C. Hippesley's report was in such demand at Rome that he had to send for more copies from London, L 146 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD that Dr. Milner had written against it. I hinted again at assistance with respect to my history, but he would not take the hint. I have since been told that the reason why he behaved in this manner is that on the Tuesday after my arrival, he received a letter from England cautioning him against anything' 1 might say. I shall see him once or twice again before I go, and if I find he will not talk to me of his own accord, I will openly tell him my mind." After a grateful allusion to the kindness shown to him and hjs fellow-travellers by Cardinal Consalvi, Secretary of State, Lingard passes to his own proceed- ings with regard to the English College in Rome, a subject which needs a few words of explanation. When Dr. Allen, the future cardinal, established, as we have seen, an English College in Rome in the year 1578, the first rector of the new college was Maurice Clenock, who had been almoner and secretary to Cardinal Pole, and Bishop-elect of Bangor;' compelled to fly from England on Elizabeth's accession, he had been made warden of the English hospice in Rome.* We have the testimony of Allen himself that Clenock was " an honest and friendly man, and a great advancer of tha students' and seminaries' cause," f but his appointment as rector was unfortunate, and had been made contrary to the opinion of Dr. Allen. He was accused of in- competency, and of unduly favouring the seven Welsh students at the expense of the thirty-three English students in the college. After several appeals and * From a very remote period England had had a settlement in Rome, a hospice for travellers and for embassies and missions to the Holy See. The Borgo Vecchio opposite the Vatican hill is a corruption of the " borough," or " burgh," of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Maurice Clenock was born in Wales. The date of his birth is not known. He died about 1580. t Letters to Dr. Lewes, 1 2th May, 1579. ENGLISH COLLEGE AT ROME 147 petitions, the latter rebelled and finally left in a body,' determined to travel to Rheims, whither the seminary had been removed from Douay. Cardinal Morone, who had succeeded Cardinal Pole as protector of the hos- pice, took the rector's part; but Allen, whose desire above all things was the training up of good priests, wrote to those who remonstrated against a change of rector, that they had better " sit quiet and let matters go on," and forget " the hazardous and scandalous means," by which the revolution had been effected. Among the means so designated had been the inter- ference of the Jesuits. It was now forty-two years since Ignatius Loyola and his six companions, the septem contra Lutkerum, had presented themselves before Pope Julius III at Tivoli; who had cried out, when the rules of the new " little company " of Clerks Regular had been submitted to him, " the finger of God is here," and had in the bull "Regimini Militantes EcclesicB " sealed with apostolic authority this unique constitution of the " Free Lances of the Church." On the Pope alone was the new society to depend, and a situation with regard to the ordinary episcopal authori- ties of Christendom was created, which, human natiu"e being what it is, could not fail to raise points of dif- ference as time went /on;, when accusations of despotism on the one hand, and of something like sharp practice on the other woiild be exchanged: contentions which served to keep alive, like the friction of flint and steel, the fire of energy and good intent in the momentous struggle for reform then beginning, when, judging by probabilities, the Roman Church seemed tottering to its fall. The Jesuits had seized upon the school, as well as upon the pulpit, the hospital and the confessional, 'which secular as well as regular clergy had neglected; and when the incompetent Maurice Clenock was appointed 148 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD rector of the English College, they stood in the very first rank as educators of youth. Two Italian Jesuits were therefore made procurator and prefect of the new establishment, between whom and the rector frequent contests arose, with the result that the malcontent students 'took |the part of the former, and were received, on their own departure in a body from the college, by the Jesuit authorities, who kept them two days, lodging and feeding them; who appealed to the Pope pn their behalf and finally induced them to return to the college, under promise that they would be made easy in a short time with regard to Mr. Clenock. This was effected by his removal after a year's term of office, and the appointment by Pope Gregory, XIII of a Jesuit, Father Agazzari, in his stead — a proceeding which met, as we have seen, with the assent of Dr. Allen, which was approved by a majority! of the English in Rome, but bitterly protested againsit by many of the ancient clergy, headed by Dr. Lewis, archdeacon of Cambray, who had given large sums to the new foundation.* In order to preserve the college as a nursery of secular clergy it was enacted that every student, after his ordination, shotdd take a solemn oath not to join any religious order — ^an anomalous state of things which prevented a young man from entering the sphere in which moved the superiors and professors whom he loved and reverenced, at the same time that it bound the superiors to keep back instead of urging onward those under their care, in respect to what they held to be the higher and more excellent way. As a natural consequence, the purpose of the founder was constantly * Owen Lewis (1533-95), Bishop of Cassano, of an ancient family in the Isle of Anglesey. He was strongly opposed to the transfer of the college, and retired to Milan, where St. Charles Borromeo, impressed with his zeal and ability, made him one of his Vicars-General, THE JESUIT INFLUENCE 149 evaded by students who left the collegie immediately before ordination to enter the Jesuit novitiate, or by a papal dispensation afterwards.* As the " Society " continued to increase in power and influence, its scholastic success raising its members ever higher as instructors, guides, and disciplinarians of youth, coUege after college came under their rule tmtil, in the year 161 9, a petition from Douay to Cardinal Famese, protector of the English, ruefully set forth that of the branch colleges originally founded for their benefit, those of Italy and Spain had been wrested from their hands, and converted into nurseries of the society; they complained that Douay, the only seminary that remained to them, the only refuge of their brethren when driven by persecution from their country, was overlaid by the influence of the Jesuits;, and they concluded by praying that the latter might 'be forbidden to interfere with the clergy or their colleges. The appeal was successful. Cardinal Farnese writing that he had no intention of interfering with the rector's authority. In the eighteenth century an unfoimded accusation; of Jansenism — attributed to Jesuit influence — was equally successfully disproved and defeated by the college authorities; and then, on the 21st July, 1773, * " Indeed, it was still to serve as a nursery for the clergy ; but yet the Jesuits reaped a double advantage by the change. The juniors of their order had a maintenance and opportunity of improving themselves by being made tutors to the clergy and quasi professors. Again, it became a kind of nursery to their order. For very often those that were designed for the clergy, before they had compleated their studies, were inroUed among the Jesuits. . . . There have ever since been frequent remonstrances against this heterogeneous education of the clergy, and many inconveniences alleged as flowing from it, especially an hereditary and often a scandalous faction among those who ought to be united in the same interest." (Dodd's History of the Church, Vol. I, p. 514. Brussels, 1737.) Hugh Tootell, alias Charles Dodd, priest, historian, and controversialist, was born in Lancashire in 1671, and died at Harvington Hall, Worcester, where he was chaplain to Sir Robert Throckmorton, in 1743. 150 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD more than two hundred years after Julius Ill's bull Regimini Militantis EcclesicB, had come the " destruc- tive brief," Dominms ac Redemptor, of Clement XIV suppressing the order. Stunned but not dismayed by the blow, that wonderful organisation received it with submission, and began at once to raise their destroyed edifice from its ruins. Stripped of property and pos- sessions, replaced at a stroke almost into the status of their great founder and his companions, the gold of their constitutions separated from |the accumulated dross of worldly power and (ambitions, the sons of St. Ignatius began a renewed life in the service of their faith, which might still retain for them the title of " Free Lancesi of the Church." It is not, however, to be wondered at, if the meru of Douay preserved throughout those two centuries an attitude of caution towards the Jesuit order — a spiriti with which Lingard was deeply imbued — however de- serving of admiration and respect its achievements might be. When Lingard arrived in Rome in 1 8 1 7, the J2nglish College was almost in a state of ruin, not only owing; to the suppression of the society which had possessed it for two hundred years, but to the seizure of its' revenues by the French during their occupation of the Papal States. It had stood empty for twenty years, and Cardinal Litta had lately failed in an attempt to annex: it to Propaganda: the Pope basing his refusal on the ground that it would be contrary to the wishes of the English bishops. Lingard, in his letter to Dr. Poynter, relates the above facts and continues : " Mr. Macpherson requests in the most pressing manner that your lordship would send some one over as agent. He could get the English College for him from Cardinal CARDINAL CONSALVI 151 Consalvi, . . . What does your lordship think of Mr. Gradwell for the office?" It can be imagined with what zeal Lingard entered into the project of recovering the long-lost Engilish College to the secular clergy ; and with his rare insight into character, his designation of Gradwell as rector was to prove the fittest possible choice for the success of the scheme.* He urges " secrecy and despatch " in his letters to Dr. Poynter; his fears that before any] president arrives in Rome " either Dr. Milner or the Jesuits will obtain some information respecting the business, and endeavour to thwart us." Cardinal Con- salvi was much his friend; there was at the moment no protector of the English College since the death of Cardinal Braschi, and in the interim Consalvi, as Secre- tary of State, had all the powers of a protector. " At the same lime," writes Lingard to Dr. Poynter (July 1 8th, 1 8 17): " He took down the names of the persons now in possession as the agents of the late Cardinal Braschi, and said he would send for them, and make them give an account of the revenues of the college. Now in this case everything depends on expedition. Should the Pope name a protector (an event expected to take place before Christmas) or appoint another Secre- tary of State, the opportunity will be lost. May I presume to advise that a person should be named by you and Bishop Gibson immediately, as presi- dent or rector, to be proposed as such to the Cardinal for confirmation: and that Mr. Macpherson should, at your request, be put in possession that he may prepare the house for the reception of students. I should think * Robert Gradwell, D.D. (1777-1833), came of an ancient Lancashire family of Barbies Moor, Ulnes Walton, Croston. In May, 1828, he was made coadjutor bishop to Dr. Bramston, V.A., of the London District. He was succeeded at the English College in Rome by Dr. Nicholas Wiseman. 152 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD that three from Ushaw and three from St. Edmund's might be sent, with a person to serve as prefect of studies and at the same time as agent. At all events recommend some one to the Cardinal, and he will, I trust, name and appoint him rector. ... At all events, dispatch is neces- sary." Lingard was sorely disappointed to have failed to gain acciess to the Vatican MSS. the chief purpose ofl his journey to Rome, and he started on a trip to NaplesI and Pompeii in rather a despondent mood, writing to Dr. Poynter that he hoped whomsoever the bishop might send as rector to the English College " would be possessed of more patience than I have — I have aheady seen enough to disgust me with Rome." Happily for Lingard and his history. Cardinal Consalvi again stood his friend. On his return from Naples, on the 24th June, he waited upon the cardinal with a request to examine the Vatican archives. His joiurnal states: " Nothing could exceed the kindness of his Eminence. He sent for Monsignor Baldi, and in my presence told him to order, in his name, all the ofKcers to give me every facility, and to procure for me such MSS. as I should then mark down in writing. But though they obeyed, everything has been thrown into so much con- fusion by the French that I did not procure all the codices I wanted." Cardinals Somaglia and Quarantotti were also very kind to Lingard, the former accepting a copy of his Anglo-Saxon Church and of his reply to Sir J. Cox Hippesley. These works, and his own bearing, soon dispelled the prejudice engendered by the accusations from England, and on the eve of his departure from Rome he fulfilled his intention of giving Cardinal Litta "a piece of his mind." In a letter to Dr. Poypter, SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS 153 dated Geneva, 24th July, after triumphantly recounting the complete success of the negotiations respecting the English College, — ^that it would be made over to the seculars before Lingard could reach England, — he de- scribes his interview with Cardinal Litta: " I at length learned from Consalvi's private secretary that I had been accused to him [Litta] as a notorious Jansenist. ... As this was delivered to me as a secret, I could not make use of it. I waited, however, on Car- dinal Litta, and complained to him of the accusations of Jansenism which were so often brought against the Eng- lish clergy. He fought very shy, nor could I by any means bring him to acknowledge that I had been so accused. We talked of Mr. Gandolphy.* I told him that Mr. G. was only supported by Dr. Milner and a pitiful faction: and that his conduct (Litta's) was severely criti- cised in England, and attributed by many to the corrupt influence of several about him. He said he had given orders which he hoped would give you satisfaction." Lingard and his friends left Rome on the 7th July. The inauspicious beginning of his stay there had been followed by the fulfilment of his dearest wishes — access to the Vatican archives and the restoration of the English College to the secular clergy. His journal bears testimony to thfe consequent change in his own feelings : " I must confess I felt regret in turning my back on this capital. The eternal city has charms which every man must feel; it is associated with so many recollec- tions; it has been the theatre of so many important events ... it exhibits such glories at the present day * Rev. Peter Gandolphy (1779-1821), grandson of Count Gandolphi of Genoa, was the priest at Spanish Place Chapel. He was a hasty and in- accurate writer, and had incurred Dr. Poynter's censure by the publication of a Liturgy and a series of sermons. Cardinal Litta found the terms of Poynter's censure "far too harsh." 154 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD . . , that with all its defects, it fastens on the imagina- tion and endears itself to you." He had seen Pius VII. " As we were all introduced together," he wrote to Dr. J. Rigby; " he spoke only of indifferent subjects. He bends a great deal and many ventiure tp predict that he will not ou|tlive the autumn. I trust their predictions are false." Of the Court of Rome, the journal remarks : " I have called on several cardinals, and found them very kind and respectable men. Consalvi, the minister, is one of the greatest talents, and is indefatigable in in- dustry. After spending the morning in giving audience, he will take a few poached eggs for dinner, with two or three glasses of water, then apply again to business till eleven at night, throw himself on his sofa in his bed- gown, snatch two or three hours' sleep, dress, drive 1 8 miles to Castel Gandolpho to the Pope, return again, and apply once more to business by nine in the morn- ing." By Florence, Bologna, and Parma the travellers reached Milan, where Lingard found MSS. in the Am- brosian Library which he wished to consult. In the palace on the Isola Bella of the Borromean Islands two great personages had of late years slept : " the Princess of Wales two years ago, and Bonaparte two days before the battle of Marengo. In the evening, as he sauntered through the garden, he inscribed on one of the large laurels the word ' Battaglia.' It is still very legible." At Geneva Lingard is interested to see the " squarei country house " in which Gibbon had lived, and Capet, where Necker: " while alive remained out of, and now he is dead remains there in spirits. Madame de Stael once ventured to visit ■^Z-tSt-i^^.^^'TTjC^. DECLINES A BISHOPRIC 155 the room in which her parents are thus kept, like ana- tomical preparations, and was so shocked that she ordered new doors and locks, etc., to be added, with a prohibition to open it to any one. She is now dead herself, and her body is expected to arrive to-day. Why do Englishmen admire this lake? I believe because it is not in England, and still possesses English scenery, in wood and meadow." By the end of August Lingard was again at work at Hornby^ after haying, on his way through London, — at the age of forty-six — received apd declined the offer of a mitre, proving agajn, as he had proved by his refusal to become the president of a college, the. depth and sincerity of his devotion to the service of history, which no proffered honours in any other field could alter or diminish. Bishop Collingridge, Vicar- T. Apostolic of the Western District, who was a Fran- ( ciscan, thought it necessary, when choosing a coadjutor, \ that he should belong to the secular clergy.* \ His great argument, as Lingard himself wrote in after years (27th Oct., 1843) to John Walker, was that " the Bishop to do good must be a secular. As a regular ... if he wanted a priest, he must apply to the regular superior . . . and after all, if the regular thought it better for the good of the body, away went] the priest to another district." For that reason he was; determined to have a secular coadjutor, who would establish a college of seculars, or make provision for the education of seculars. Looking around for the fittest man. Dr. Collingridge fijced upon Lingard, and the proposal was made to • Peter Collingridge, o.s.F. (1757-1829), Provincial of Franciscans, and appointed in 1806 coadjutor to Bishop Sharrock, whom he succeeded the following year. His project of founding a secular college was carried out when his successor, Dr. Baines, established Prior Park in 1830. Baines was a Benedictine, but on succeeding to the vicariate got himself secularised by Pope Pius VIII. 156 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD ■him by Dr. Poynter immediately upon his return to England. Poynter then wrote to Collingridge ( 1 6th August, 1 817) that he had made the proposal to Mr. Lingard : , " He objected 1° on the ground of the Western Dis- trict having been hitherto governed by vicars-apostolic chosen from some religious order, and of his being a secular. He is apprehensive the choice of a secular clergyman would raise a greater clamour among the regulars, than the giving the college of St. Omer to the secular clergy raised amongst the Jesuits : all tending to divisions. He thinks that before your lordship asks for a secular as coadjutor, it would be necessary, in order to prevent this, that you should speak to the head superiors of the religious orders in England, and state to them, that unless they can furnish a Person whom you could recommend, you must chuse one from the secular clergy, etc. 2° Mr. Lingard said it would be a great impediment to the execution of his work, which he is anxious to bring to perfection and which the Catholic public is in great expectation of. He added that some of his reflections would not become the responsible charac- ter of a Bishop. — This is the substance of his objections. I now leave him to your Lordship. He is gone to Win- chester for a day, and then will hasten down to the north. Your Lordship cannot feel more anxious to have a co- adjutor, than I do to see one appointed for you in the present circumstances." The strength and clearsightedness of Lingard's ob- jections, as well as of Dr. Collingridge 's motives, may be estimated by the fact that the coadjutor, appointed six years later, was, in fact, a Benedictine, who found it expedient to obtain his own secularisation from the Pope immediately upon his succession to the vicariate. CHAPTER VIII HOW many days Lingard spient in London before his one day's visit to his mother at Winchester we know not, nor whether he gladdened her heart by telling her of the proffered bishopric — or concealed it from her that she might not be disappointed at his' refusal of the honour. There is no record of the [persons whom he frequented in London, but from' passages in his letters we may infer that he was per- sonally acquainted with Lord Holland, Henry Broug- ham, Dr. Allen, among other eminent men, while his old affectionate intimacy, not only with Bishop Poynter, but with Charles Butler and the other friends of his! youth, remained unaltered. By the end of the year he had made such progress with the first volumes of his History of England, to which he had brought the finishing touches in his transcripts from the archives of Rome, Milan, and Paris, that he could write to Dr., Kirk on the 2 6th January, 1 8 1 8, after wishing success to a new periodical in which Kirk was interested, that he had no time to write for it himself as he was in treaty with a Protestant publisher in London for his, History.* The publisher was Mr. Joseph Mawman. Lingard had offered the work to two Catholic publishers, Booker of Bond Street, and Keating of Duke Street, Grosvenor Sqtiare, who had declined it — or rather, the former had * The periodical was the Catholic Gentleman's Magazine. The first number appeared in April, and the last in September, 1818. 158 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD ofifered the sum of £300 for the copyright, which Lingard considered inadequate. Mr. George Silvertop, of Minster -Acres, then took the matter in hand, and Lingard wrote to Gradwell at Rome on the 1 8th April : " At the time of your departure I was negociating with Booker. . . . Since then I have employed Mr. Silvertop to negociate with Mawman, the publisher of Eustace.* Last Monday but one at his request I met him at Larting- ton on his return from town.f He brought me a contract signed by Mawman. I had sent about 300 pages, which he submitted to the inspection of Lord Holland, Mr. Brougham and Mr. Allen: and after hearing their report, consented to give my demands, viz. 1000 guineas. On condition that I would let him have the second part, not yet written, he added £500 to be paid me on the second edition of the jSrst part. The second he is to have on the same conditions as the first, in proportion to its extent. I think it is not a bad bargain."} In an interesting letter to Mawman, a few days pre- viously, Lingard, after acknowledging the handsome manner in which the latter had met his proposal, and giving divers details as to the progress of thet work, adds that he has as yet written no preface — ^that he is " no great admirer of prefaces, as it is difficult to com'- pose one without implying at least censure on former writers on the same subject." The publisher wished for some special points likely, to attract attention for preliminary circtdation among the booksellers. Lingard in his reply, dated 15th November, 1 8 1 9, among other suggestions, says : * J. C. Eustace (1762 ?-l8lS). His Classical Tour through Italy, first published in 1S13, went through seven editions in thirty years. t Lartington Hall, Yorkshire, was the seat of George Silvertop's elder brother Henry, who had assumed the name of Witham. X The first draft of 300 pages is at Ushaw College. It varies in many respects from the subsequent form of the history. HISTORY OF ENGLAND 159 " At the present time, when so much is said about annual parliaments and universal suffrage, it might per- haps be proper to notice those passages which refer to those two questions. . . . What think you of transcrib- ing the passage on the fall of Wallace? I am persuaded that I am right. If I am not, it will be easy for the admirers of Wallace to produce some ancient writer to contradict me. Even if it produced a controversy it would be of service, as it would bring the work into notice. Perhaps the contest that is now going on at the rival theatres between the rival Richards may give an interest to what I say about that monarch.* ... It is generally supposed that Henry II invaded Ireland in consequence of Adrian's' grant. The contrary will appear. 2° It is supposed that John was the first who consented to hold his crown as a vassal of the pope; it appears Henry II had done so before him. 3° There is also an instance of Richard I holding his crown as a vassal of the Emperor of Germany." In all, Lingard gives some twenty points, including, besides the above, " The great resemblance between the Lxjllards and the Methodists of the present day, the imprisonmient of Edward IV, and Henry VII's treat- ment of his Queen/' from^ which Mr. Mawman may choose those which to his judgment will appear most interesting. His historical labours did not absorb all Lingajrd's attention : his pen remained as ready as ever to prepare Latin petitions and remonstrances to Rome for his bishops, to champion the cause of the seculars in the numerous disputes with' which that feverish period was rife. It is interesting to find, however, that a pamphlet * The rival Richards were Edmund Kean at Drury Lane, and William Macready at Covent Garden. Macready's Richard III took a firm hold of the public, and established a dangerous rivalry for Kean, i6o LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD very generally attributed to him — ^but which in style is so inferior as to protest in itself against that assumption — was none of his. The occasion was what was known as the " Wigan controversy " concerning the old Jesuit mission and a new secular church in that town; and with regard to the pamphlet in question Lingard wrote to Dr. Poynter (i6th September, 1818): "As to the Wigan business, I will instruct him [Mr. Thompson] to the best of my power.* Mr. T.'s last pamphlet you have seen, and, from your letter to Mr. Kirk, I suspect it is attributed to me. The truth is, Mr. T. came to me with a ponderous answer to Mr. P[lowden].t I did not like it, and therefore sat down and gave him a sketch of what I could reply. He took it with him, and a month after published it, adding the title, the notes, and many passages to the text. So that I cannot say it is mine. Indeed I never expected it would be published as it was. . . . One statement in it chances to be incorrect. The Committee did not ask the bishop's leave to add to the old chapel, but, avoiding that, sent him their ' resolutions ' to do so. But it is nearly the same thing. Their hope was that he would in his answer approve of it." A graver question had occupied Lingard in the spring of the year. The " gentlemten of Stonyhurst," as they were usually called, while the question of the restoration of their order in England was imder dis- cussion, had prevailed upon Cardinal Litta, prefect of Propaganda, to write a letter, dated 14th' Febrtxary, 1 8 1 8, to Bishop Gibson in favour of the society, and requesting him to ordain its scholastics titulo pmtper- tatis like other religious; which would put an end tO( * Rev. Richard Thompson, grand-vicar oi Lancashire. The pamphlet was entitled Re-statement of the Case of Wigan Chapel. t Rev. Charles Plowden, s.j. , vfas now superior of Stonyhurst. AN IMPORTANT LETTER i6i the necessity then existing that after eight years' service to the college, Stonyhurst men should return to their respective dioceses and work on the mission imder the bishops' orders. The vicars-apostolic had set their faces against such a concession from the beginning, and, in a letter to Dr. Kirk (May 29th) Lingard de- scribes how. the news was received by Dr. Gibson.* " I was lately at Durham. A letter, of which you will have heard, came from Cardinal Litta, saying that he understood the Bishop would not ordain Jesuits, because the bull of restoration had not been officially notified to him. He therefore informed him it was the Pope's will that they should be restored everywhere, and consequently in England — which notification he hoped he would receive amico animo. — I prevailed on the Bishop to let me write in his name to the Pope, to be presented by Grad- well, complaining that the Cardinal should decide on subjects of so much consequence to the English Catholics on the representations of interested individuals at Rome, (Grassi, Tempest, Weldt) instead of consulting the bishops, the persons from whom he could get the best advice, and telling His Holiness that if it were known in parliament it would have bad consequences : and in the event of emancipation taking place, be the occasion of laws against the Jesuits, and probably through them against the Benedictines and other religious. But before its [Litta 's letter's] arrival, Sir J. Cox Hippesley had heard of it and complained bitterly to His Holiness, who replied that he had never heard of it before: that it was done without his orders, and that Bishop Gibson would receive * The Society had been restored by Pius VII, in 1814, in those countries ' ' in which the civil powers agreed to receive and recall it " in quibus civiUs potestates illam recipire ac revocare consenserint, as Cardinal Litta answered (December 2nd, 1816) Dr. Poynter's questions on the subject — a condition which certainly did not apply, in the estimation of the vicars-apostolic, Dr. Milner excepted, to England at this period. + Father Grassi was the General of the Jesuits. Messrs. Tempest, Weld, and others at that time in Rome were actively engaged in supporting the Society's demands. M i62 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD a letter telling him to consider Cardinal Litta's letter tanquam non scriptam." * When Lingard had achieved the restoration of the English Colliege in Rome, with the placing of Robert Gradwiell at its head, he had done a great service to' his pausie, but an ill-service to himself by depriving" himself of one of his most useful and dearest friends.: Claughton, in Lancashirie, where Gradwell had been priest, was near enough to Hornby to make communi- cation easy, and in one of his letter's of this yeajri — 24th September — Lingard expresses his regret that his friend has left ClaUghton: " Now that the poor Doctor [John Rigby, of Lan- caster] is gone, I have no one, absolutely no one whom I can consult, or whose help I can ask towards my literary pursuits. How I should like to have an hour or two's chat with you on several subjects connected with my history I However, I am sure you will be of more service where you are." Gradwell had already been of service to his friend: he had spent hours among the MSS. in the Vatican and had obtained " a more ample license and better means of getting these instruments copied than any English man ever had." For; £150 {louis) he could get everything yet unpublished respecting England transcribed and attested. He asks to what expense he is to go, will the English Catholics bear him out in the cost, when he has ahea.dy spent the larger part of his little fortune in the public service, and has such amplel demands on the Uttle that remains? And he adds the important warning that a letter from Pope Martin * Cardinal Litta's letter to Bishop Gibson, telling him that his letter of the 14th February was by the order of the Pope to be held as not having been written, tanquam non scriptam, bears the date of May 5th, 1818. VATICAN TRANSCRIPTS 163 referred to in Spondanus is a false print; he has seen, the originalj and it is nothing to the purppse. Mon- signor Marini, the archivist, has told him that papal letters, bulls, etc., which are pretended to be tran- scribed from the Vatican archives are commonly full; of interpolations and blunders.* So passionate a lover of historical truth could not, hesitate, and Lingard replied that when once his work was published, and he was sure of getting his money he would, in his own words " speculate " on the Eng- lish bullarium.f The difficulty suggested by Mon- signor Marini, i.e. that documents in print might never- theless never have been published, Ljngard meets as follows : " The first thing to be done would be for me (for I fear you would not have the time) to collect an index of all the papal bulls and letters which we have already in print, putting down their titles, the first words and the dates. Furnished with this index I conceive that the archivist, or whoever is employed, might pass over all that he may find in the library, which may have already been published, and confine himself to those papers which have not yet seen the light. But here will be the great difficulty: of those which remain many no doubt may be interesting, but many also may be of no value whatsoever at present. Who is to make the selection? For you to read them all over would be impossible: for the person employed to search for them to decide, would perhaps be imprudent? Tell me how you think this can be arranged. * Gradwell to Lingard, 1st August, 1818. t Lingard's conception of the duties of an historian may be compared with that of Pope Leo XIII, in his "Letter on Historical Studies," when opening the Vatican archives: "Strenuous efforts should be made to refute all false words and untrue statements by ascending to the fountain-heads of information, keeping vividly in mind that the first law of history is to dread uttering falsehood ; the next not to fear stating the truth ; lastly, that the historian's writings should be open to no suspicion of partiality or animosity." (August i8th, 1883. Tablet, XXX, 321.) i64 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD For I fear that an immense mass of papers will be found, and that the greater part of them will merely regard privileges granted to religious houses, etc. etc., which cannot contribute to elucidate either our history, religion or manners, or literature. ... I have just seen Mr. John Gage, who tells me that it is the general opinion that a great mass of papers respecting the pro- perty of religious houses, the Church, and even particular noblemen, found its way to Rome at the time of the Reformation. Could you learn whether it were so or not? From such papers something interesting might perhaps be brought to light. Have you none in your library? for I should think it more likely they should be there than anywhere else. . . ." * Not historical subjects alone occupied the attention and anxiety of Lirugard in his correspondence with Robert GradweU. It was not to be expected that the rffitoration of the English College in Rome to the seculars — so speedily accomplished — would pass un- opposed by those who had held it for more than two centuries. Simultaneously with the petitions and agita- tion for the recognition of the Jesuits in England, petitions and agitation were energetically carried on by, themselves and their friends for the return of the English College to them. The story is graphically told by Lingard to Dr. Kirk, in his letter of the 29th May: " You may not be acquainted with all the particulars repecting the college at Rome. You recollect it was mentioned in the papers that Cardinal Consalvi was gone to Terracina to meet the Neapolitan minister. Do you know that that moment was chosen to turn, if possible, Gradwell out of the college? Grassi, the head of the Italian Jesuits, Messrs. Tempest and Weld mustered all their forces. They procured ten cardinals, who promised * Lingard to GradweU, September 24th, 1818. (English College, Rome.) THREE VOLUMES PUBLISHED 165 to speak to the Pope in their favour, and Gradwell was publicly told that his reign was at an end. He took heart, however, went to the Pope, had a conference of an hour with him, and returned with the assurance that the Pope would protect him. So it turned out. Consalvi, at his return, was highly pleased with G[radwell]'s con- duct, and two days after sent him a diploma, constituting him rector, as from the Pope himself. . . . He therefore thinks himself secure. Not so the Jesuits. A short time ago, while he was at the Vatican with Consalvi, Grassi entered the college, took formal possession, and turned out Gradwell's servant, telling him that his master might go to an inn. Gradwell, on his return, took possession again, and wrote an account of all to Consalvi, who immediately sent for Grassi and reprimanded him severely. All this shows that Gradwell is safe while Consalvi reigns, but he will have hard work afterwards. Consalvi has recovered for him about 6000 crowns per annum, and great part of the library. ... He [Gradwell] has sent for eight young men to begin with. They are to be students in philosophy and divinity." The agitation was carried no further, and the seculars have remained in undisputed possession of the college to this day. On the 3rd May, 1819, the first three volumes of Lingard's History of England, reaching to the end of the reign of Henry VH, were given to the world. The price was five guineas for the three volumes, and so iramed|iate was the success of the work that Lingardi cotild write to Robert Gradwell, exactly one month, later, thiat it had exceeded his anticipation : "On the 1 8th 500 copies had been sold, a great number considering the price. Mawman is in great spirits, and tells me that though he may be thought extrava- gant, he is yet confident that a second edition will be called for in November. He gave me six copies, and I, i66 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD presuming that you would do me the favour to accept of one, have sent it to you by Dr. Poynter. ... I wish I could have spared another for Mr. Macpherson. . . . You will however have the goodness to lend him yours: but let it be in cool weather, for there are some passages in it which will set his Scotch blood in a ferment. As yet I have heard nothing against it. But I am told it was secretly whispered, before it was published, that I had sold my principles together with my MS. These persons will not fail to assert that their predictions are verified. For I have written in a different manner from that observed in the Anglo-Saxon Church. I have been careful to defend the catholics, but not so as to hurt the feelings of the protestants. Indeed my object has been to write such a work, if possible, as should be read by protestants : under the idea, that the more it is read by them, the less Hume will be in vogue, and consequently the fewer prejudices against us will be imbibed from him. But enough of myself." This point of view is still more plainly set forth ini a letter to Dr. Kirk before the end of the year (Decem- ber 1 8th): " Through the work I made it a rule to tell the truth, whether it made for us or against us; to avoid all ap- pearance of controversy, that I might not repel protestant readers; and yet to furnish every necessary proof in our favour in the notes; so that if you compare my narrative to Hume's, for example, you will find that, with the aid of the notes, it is a complete refutation of him without appearing to be so. This I thought preferable. In my account of the Reformation I must say much to shock protestant prejudices; and my only chance of being read by them depends upon my having the reputation of a temperate writer. The good to be done is by writing a book which protestants will read. . . . This, however, I can say, that I have not enfeebled a single proof in our THE ORTHODOX JOURNAL 167 favour, nor omitted a single fact or useful observation through fear of giving offence to Mawman, as Bishop M[ilner] assorts. Such a thing never entered my mind. Whatever I have said or purposely omitted has been through a motive of serving religion." Before any Protestant reviewer had noticed the book it was the subject pf a strong attack in the June number of the Orthodox Journal, from the pen of Dr. Milner. Milner's End of Controversy, the crowning work of his great and persevering labours, had been published a few months previously, though, as we have seen, it had been written in 1802 and withheld at the request of Bishop Douglass, on account of the bad blood created by the controversy which had raged round his History of Winchester and Letters to a Prebendary. No two methods could well be more opposed to each other than Milner's and Lingard's, and that very opposition moved the former to a fiercer indignation. Possessed by the erroneous idea that Lingard owed everything to him, lie expresses his disappointment that the author had not fulfilled his expectations; and, unable to resist striking a blow at Charles Butler, who, he says, " seems to have lived till old age with no other view than that of subjugating " the priesthood of his church " to un- restricted lay and even heterodox control," he declares himself far from placing Lingard with such " betrayers of their religion "as " this celebrated counsellor and bill-maker," with' whom he numbers Joseph Berington and Eustace. He then proceeds to set forth his stric- tures on the work which he declares is not a Catholic history, " such as our calumniated and depressed con- dition calls for." Besides a general condemnation of the spirit of the work, which he was later to dismiss with the summary, expression, " It's a bad book, Sir; only calculated to i68 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD confirm Protestants in their errors," * Milner chooses three special points for condemnation: the mission of St. Germanus of Auxerre to England, because Lingard had said he had come with the concurrence of Pope St. Celestine, whereas, according to certain authors, he had come as the Pope's delegate ; Lingard's account of the same saint's "alleluja" victory over the northern invaders of Britain is condemned because it is not given as a purely miraculous event, a victory of the Christians over the Pagans — "fl bloodless victory, with- out the infliction of any punishment, or so much as rushing upon them, obtained by the blessing of Gcd at the mere sound of 'Alleluja.'" St. Thomas of Canterbury is, however, the person in whose defence, against Lingard's supposed attack. Bishop Milner strikes most vehemently: that during his exile in France, when he divided the whole of his time between prayer and reading, his opinions should, according to Lingard, have become tinged with enthusiasm, is as shocking to the critic as the statement that St. Thomas was capable of a moment of irritation, or a precipitate measure; and after blaming the expression that the martyr died in defence of what he thought to be his duty, Milner concludes: "If this, Mr. Editor, is not sacrificing the cause of the Church in the person of one of its canonized martyrs, I know not what is." A defence of the book, by " Candidus," appeared in the following number of the Orthodox Journal, in which, as in the case of the Anglo-Saxon Church, the authority of the earliest writers was opposed to those quoted by Milner; and the very pertinent answer was made to the complaint against the spirit of the work that it was " not a book of controversy, but a history of England " that Lingard had undertaken to write, * Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner, p. 406. "JUDEX" AND "CANDIDUS" 169 and that he had executed that undertaking " in a mas- terly manner." * Under different titles— once, as "Judex " posing as arbitrator between himself and " Candidus "— Milner replied, and a controversy ensued, lasting into the following year, and marked by the bitterly personal tone characteristic of Catholic polemics of that period, for which Dr. Milner was chiefly responsible; while Eusebius Andrews from time to time fanned the flame in his editorial notes, f Lingard, true to his maxim of not noticing adverse criticisms, except by correcting in future editions any errors he might be proved to have made, took no ostensible share in the controversy beyond sending a private message to Dr. Milner to have a care, or he would find when he raised his arm to a brother he had bared his own back to the lash, and this although, as he wrote to Mr. Kirk, " There is not a quotation from my book . . . which is not false — I think not one." In his correspondence, however, we can trace the impres- sion made upon him by these attacks of an old opponent and his few followers. J In his letter to Gradwell of * ' ' Candidus "is generally supposed to have been John Fletcher, D. D. , who died at an advanced age in 1848, a learned man and a profound writer, who was Lingard's intimate friend. A copy of the Orthodox Journal, annotated by a member of the Salvin family of Burn Hall, ascribes the letters of " Candidus " to the Rev. John Wheeler, the chaplain there, but no corrobora- tive evidence of the fact is in existence. A more likely person was Dr. Kirk, of Lichfield, whose position as a priest in Dr. Milner's diocese would necessitate his preserving his identity a secret. t With regard to St. Germanus and Pope Celestine, "Candidus" showed that the Britons had applied to the prelates of Gaul, who assembled a council and sent Germanus and another missionary — the Pope having sanctioned the measure afterwards — as asserted by the saint's contemporary, Constantius, and supported by Paulus Diaconus, Bede, Odo of Vienna, and other writers in opposition to Prosper, quoted by Milner. Lingard had, in fact, noticed the controversy in his Anglo-Saxon Church, and, wishing to avoid it in the History, had used the word concurrence. X One of these, who signed himself "T," called the work "a flowing jejune, a naked narrative of facts, already known to the readers,the protestant part of which he appears to court . . . and from whom he has already received a meed of applause in all quarters." 170 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD the 3rd June, after telling him that 750 copies of his book have been sold, and that a second edition is talked of, he continues: " If you see the Orthodox, you will see how fiercely it has been attacked by Dr. Milner." Milner, in his first article, had somewhat contempt- uously placed Lingard's History below " Miss Young's ingenious, but ill-printed abridgment, or Mr. Mylius's more contracted school-book." So Lingard remarks: " What amuses me is that Dr. Milner advises his friends to read Mylius's abridgment in preference to my work; and yet on examination that abridgment contains the same fault as my own book, it never calls St. Thomas of Canterbury saint. It is even worse, I am told. For I do call him so once. Dr. Milner's cavils have, how- ever, made some impression on certain persons, who lament that I have given up the cause of catholicity. I conceive, however, that if they were to examine, they would discover the contrary. For even where I acknow- ledge the exactions of the Court of Rome, on examination it will be found that my narrative is a refutation of the more exaggerated accounts of Hume, etc., though it is so told as not to appear designed for that purpose. The work has been reviewed in two numbers of the 'Monthly Review, where it is spoken of in the most handsome manner. In the European 'Magazine it is also reviewed. I suspect Mawman feed the writer: for he makes it one of the first of histories." To Dr. Kirk he writes on the 1 8th December : " I have just seen the Pseudodox for October and November. Judex acknowledges the false quotations, etc., and, if 'Andrews will insert it, I shall instruct a friend in London to expose his ignorance with respect to Welsh records, Osbern, Bridforth, etc. Never did a man talk at random like a certain Vic. Apos." Kirk had sent some observations by a third person on the History, hoping they would not be taken amiss; to which Lingard replied in the following letter: MILNER AND THE " HISTORY " 171 " He knew little of me if he thought I should take it ill. I am as much, perhaps more dissatisfied with the style than he is. But style is become with me a second- ary object. The task I have imposed on myself of taking nothing on credit, but of going to the original author, is so laborious, that 1 have no time to throw away on the graces of style. Of this you will be convinced when I tell you, what I have never yet mentioned to any one, that in March, 1 8 1 8, when I made the agreement with Mawman, I had written only to the end of Edward II. I agreed to go to press in October following, so that in the course of seven months I had to look over all that I had written, to make numerous additions, and to com- pose the lives of the succeeding monarchs, This I did so as not to stop the press an hour, but it was a greater labour than I ever underwent in my life, nor would I have done it had I not found that, unless I fixed a time, I should never get through. . . . Excuse my saying so much of myself, but I feel rather indignant that it should be said by him [Milner] in the Orthodox that I have sacrified the cause to temporal motives. But he said as much of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and accused me of heresy in the bargain." It was well for Lingard that he was blest with an equable temper, and a mind prone to see the humorous side of things : this would no doubt have inclined him — especially as the attempt failed — to be more amused than indignant at Dr. Milner's efforts to get the Irish bishops to join him in condemning the History. Lin- gard heard of the circumstance some years later from Archbishop Curtis, the Catholic primate, in a letter of March', 1826, who, narrating how Dr. Milner hkd written him a very serious letter, recommending him and his brethren to examine the work and declare what qualifications certain passages, particularly those re- lating to St. Thomas of Canterbury, deserved, " My answer was," writes the Archbishop, 172 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " that we all, with our clergy and most of our educated laity, have read, approved, and admired your History; that your opinion expressed of St. Thomas acknowledges him as a learned, zealous, and holy prelate, and, in fine, a glorious martyr: that he had acted sincerely and as he thought himself in duty bound, according to the ecclesi- astical laws of his time and the circumstances in which he was engaged; but that many learned and unprejudiced men, as well then as ever since, did not think he was always right, either in the substance, or stern and in- flexible manner of some part of his conduct towards Henry II: that no greater tribute of respect than this was due or paid to any of the Holy Fathers or ancient Saints since the days of the Apostles : that, without that tone of impartiality adopted by you, there would be no chance of your being read, or gaining the confidence of our separated brethren, by whom your work was highly esteemed: and, in fine, that it had already done, and was doing, so much good everywhere that we considered our- selves bound to recommend it earnestly to all the faith- ful. This answer seemed to settle the business. Milner, in his frequent letters to me, never mentioned it any more." * Within a month of the publication of her son's book Mrs. Lingard was stricken with paralysis. In his letter to Gradwell of 3rd Jime, after announcing the death of several old friends, Lingard adds: " I fear my poor mother will also go soon. She is eighty-six years old and had a paralytic stroke last week." Old Mrs. Lingard did, however, live five years longer, rejoicing to see her well-beloved son reach the zenith of his * An instance of Lingard's moderation occurs in a letter from the Rev. John Lee, Bishop Poynter's secretary, to Dr. Kirk (May, 1820). After discussing the identity of Candidus, which both he and Mr. Fletcher had disclaimed, the writer tells how two letters of Lingard's under the name of " Philorthodoxos " on the subject of his History had been refused by the Orthodox Journal, and that when Lee had pressed him to allow Mawman to publish them in the Press, his answer had been that he felt "no relish for the introduction of a controversy of this nature in public prints." THE CATHOLIC QUESTION 173 fame, as a second and a third edition of his History appeared within two years; while it is to be hoped that the Orthodox Journal— the " Pseudodox," as her son called it — was kept from her cognizance.* Meanwhile, year after year, the question of emanci- pation was being pressed forward — with petitions and counter-petitions, bills brought in and rejected by majorities varying in number but gradually dwindling, until Grattan's motion, on the 3rd May, 18 19, for a committee to consider the Catholic question, was de- feated by the narrow majority of two; while Lord Donoughmore's similar motion in the House of Lords was lost by forty-one votes. Lord Liverpool was prime minister, and, according to Dr. Milner, there would be no emancipation so long as he was at the head of the Government. Earl Grey, Lord Grenville, and Dr. Bathtost, Bishop of Norwich, were among those most warmly in favour of the measure. f Rightly or wrongly, there was an impression abroad, which Lingard and his friends fully shared, that at this moment of crisis it was inopportune to urge the formal restoration of the Jesuits in England. But for Dr. * The fact of Mrs. Lingard's seizure occurring so immediately after the publication of the three first volumes of the History makes it appear probable that her Narrative, used by Tierney for his memoir of Dr. Lingard, and now unfortunately lost, was written at an earlier period, unless, indeed, she so far recovered as to be able to write it during the last five years of her life. + Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828). During his administration of fifteen years he was uniformly opposed to Catholic emancipation, although not so extreme as many of his followers. In 1822 he offered strenuous opposition to Canning's Catholic Relief Bill, but two years later spoke and voted in favour of Lord Lansdowne's bill to confer the franchise on English Roman Catholics. " The Government," he wrote to his brother Charles Robinson, in 1826, " hangs by a thread. The Catholic ques- tion in its present state . . . will, I have no doubt, lead to its dissolution in the course of this session." Lord Liverpool resigned office in February, 1827. At a meeting of the Catholic Board, 24th April, 1819, the Duke of Norfolk in the chair, it was unanimously resolved ' ' That Mr. Turnerelli should be requested to execute a bust in marble of that illustrious and venerable prelate " — the Bishop of Norwich — "as a small token of veneration and gratitude." (C. Butler, Hist. Mem., IV, p. 280.) 174 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Milner and the Jesuits, they honestly believed emanci- pation would very soon be carried, — the violent opposi- tion of the former to the veto being looked upon as equally damaging to the great cause, as the strenuous efforts of Mr. Charles Plowden and his friends in favour of Stonyhurst. And, strange to say, Charles Butler was, in this instance, in a sense separated from his party, as he was in favour of the Jesuits, and signed the peti- tion to the Pope for their complete restoration in Eng- land. These considerations no doubt helped to create the intense excitement, almost amounting to exaspera- tion, which betrays itself in the acts and language pro- ceeding from the rival camps. The background against which these contentions were enacted was a dark one: war-taxes, bad harvests, stagnation of trade, and the political agitators had pro- duced a spirit of imrest, even of revolution in England which found expression in rioting and outrage. Lord Liverpool unhesitatingly adopted drastic measures, in- cluding the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act ; and it is interesting to find Bishop Milner, at the latter end' of the year 1 8 1 9, issuing a letter to his clergy, bidding them warn their flocks " that every revolutionary or disorganising measure of the people must increase their distress and sufferings in a tenfold degree," and reminding them of their bounden duty to the legitimate government " to which we have pledged our allegiance by solemn oaths." As petitions and counter-petitions went up to the; English government for and against emancipation, so petition and counter-petition went to Rome for and against the restoration of the Jesuits, and especially on the hotly contested point of the ordination titulo pauper- tatis. This would not only be a practical recognition of the order in England, but a withdrawal from the THE "SMUGGLED BRIEF." 175 jurisdiction of the vicars-apostolic, — ^two results, in the estimation of Lingard and his friends, as detrimental to the prospects of emancipation as to the authority of the bishops in the administration of their dioceses. Lin-, gard who, in his own woirds to Dr. Gradwell, " drew! up most of the memorials " sent by the bishops — Dr. Milner, of course, excepted, — refers continuously and at length to the question in his co,rrespondence with Gradwell, who was the bishops' agent in Rome; and after a reference to the " smuggled brief," — a secret rescript obtained by Stonyhurst from Cardinal Somag- lia, vice-prefect of Propaganda, permitting the presi- dent of that college to send his alumni to Ireland for ordination, — ^he sums up his opinion as follows: " The object of the late rescript is evidently to restore the order in England. The young men are sent to Ireland, where they are ordained titulo paupertatis: and then Mr. Plowden disposes of them here as regulars. My opinion is this, that the bishops should be [content] (Bishop Smith is) to come to some composition with them; viz. Let the president send his alumni to where they will be ordained, but first let him ask the bishop of the district, and only send them to another when the bishop of the district refuses. 2° Wherever they ^.re ordained, let it be titulo missionis. 3° Let the president send them to those places which he has been accustomed to supply. But first let him give unto the bishops a list of those places, that there may be no dispute hereafter. 4° Before the bishop grants faculties to those whom the president shall send, let him or his vicar examine them. When once they are placed, let them be fixed there, not removable without the consent of the bishops. This I think would restore peace. It would give to Stonyhurst all it can reasonably desire, and preserve to the bishops as much authority as it would be prudent to claim, while that house has so many friends, 176 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD I am this moment interrupted by a letter from Dr. Smith, with several papers, requesting me to compose from them a letter to be sent to the Pope from the V.V.A.A. This will compel me to shorten this epistle."* Lingard's view of the matter was supported by the, English ministry. We have seen that Sir J. C. Hip- pisley, who was their unaccredited agent in Rome, had, at the first rumour of the proposed restoration strongly protested against it to the Pope; and Lord Sidmouth, on the 2nd April, 1820, after consultation with his fellow-ministers, informed Dr. Poynter that the gov- ernment had " insuperable objections to the restoration of the Jesuits in England.f Ultimately, Cardinal Som- aglia's rescript, though it had been sanctioned in a session of eleven cardinals of Propaganda, was re- scinded by Pius VII in a brief dated April i8th, 1820, addressed to Dr. Poynter by Cardinal Consalvi; and authorising him to make known, by command of the Pope, to His Majesty's ministers that, whereas the civil power refused to receive and acknowledge the Society, of Jesus in England, the said society was to be con- sidered as not restored there, " although it be so far restored in general, that if the government should be willing to admit it, there should be no need of any special grant for its reception in England. "J Car- dinal Consalvi had been in England in 1 8 1 4, and knew by experience the situation of the Catholics there, the prejudices against them, and the general difficulties of the situation. * Lingard to Gradwell, 28th October, 1819. t Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844). His attitude towards emancipation may be judged by his speech in a debate of 12th February, 1799: "If he had to choose between the re-enactment of the popery laws and Catholic emancipation, coupled with parliamentary reform ... he should give the preference to the former." Lord Sidmouth was Home Secretary from 1812 until he retired from office in 1821. ij: Decreta, p. 10. "QUOD SCR/PSI, SCRIPSI" 177 Mr. Charles Plowden, on receipt of the Pope's de- cree^ hastened to Rome, and privately solicited a re- vocation or modification of the brief; but Pius VII returned the uncompr'o raising answer, " quod scripsi, scripsl." Lingard's important share in these negotiations took him several times to Durham for consultation with' Bishops Gibson and Smith; and on one occasion brought about his first meeting with Southey. The in- cident is recorded by him many years later — in 185 i — in a letter to John Walker, of Scarborough: " I knew Southey personally at Ushaw and here [Hornby]. In 1819 his brother the Doctor came from Lisbon to Durham, and was very intimate with the Wit- hams. Southey himself visited him there, and one day strolled up to Ushaw. We talked of books, and of the information to be gained from the Saints' lives. He frequently repeated his visits, and I recommended to him the Annates Benedictinorum as a book which would be useful to him. He was a very silent, good-natured, and unassuming companion, and I liked him much. His son has lately written to me for any scrap of correspondence which I might possess of his written at that time, but I had not preserved any." The conversation of the two historians as they met in the library, or strolled in the grounds of UshaW College, " talking of books," must have been deeply interesting; and makes us the more regret that any, echoes of it lingering in Southey's letters should have been destroyed in the great burnings of papers, which Lingard executed on more than one occasion before his death. The manifold labours entailed upon him by public affairs did not notably interrupt Lingard's historical work; and this was probably the fullest and the most N 178 LIFE OE JOHN LlNGARD arduous, as well as the happiest period of his life.. In perfect health and vigour — his intellectual faculties and extraordinary capacity for work at their highest development — he could truly say in his letter to Grad- well of the 3rd June, i8ig, after mtentioning his con- stant application to study: "but I have applied so, much lately, that I find application necessary to pass the day pleasantly." His relations with' his publisher were of the plea- santest. Mr. Mawman had requested, during his nego- tiations with Mr. Silvertop, that Lingard should allow, a literary friend of his own to inspect each sheet before it was sent to the printer. Lingard unhesitatingly agreed, only stipulating that while corrections of minor consequence — such as regarded language, etc. — need not be referred to him', he would wish to be consulted on such alterations as regarded the statements of facts and opinions.* Mawman's literary friend was Charles Blomfield, Rector of St. Botolph's, afterwards Bishop of Chester, and of London; and it speaks volumes for the candour and trustfulness of the one, and of the integrity and fair-mindedness of the other, that in this conjunction between a Catholic priest and a Protestant archdeacon the utmost harmony prevailed throughout, and they, became fast friends. Even when it came to the dehcate ground of the reign of Henry VIII, Lingard was able to write to his publisher to say how highly gratified he had been by the character given to the volume by Dr. Blomfield.t • Lingard to Joseph Mawman, 14th April, 1818. + Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857) rector of the rich London benefice of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate. He was made Archdeacon of Colchester in 1822, Bishop of Chester in 1824, and Bishop of London in 1828. CHAPTER IX ON the 29th April, 1820, the prefect of Propa- ganda, at the Pope's command, addressed a letter to Bishop Milner, ordering him, under pain of dismissal from his vicariate, to cease contributing to the Ortho- dox Journal. Copies of that publication— not, as is generally stated, chosen extracts from it — had been sent to Rome by Dr. Poynter, and the decision of Propa- ganda can be no surprise to any one who has perused them.* The attacks upon Charles Butler and Bishop Poynter are accurately described in the cardinal's letter as replete with " detraction and abuse," often even with " enormous calumnies " against the reputation of several Catholics, of vicars-apostolic, of ministers of the Holy See. It is publicly known that Bishop Milner is one of the Journal's chief supporters and writers, supplying the editor with many contributions, and the letter expresses surprise that a vicar-apostolic should dare to sow discord, trample upon the honour of sacred ministers, eminent for their piety, learning, and dig- nity, and excite the Catholic people against the nobility, who deserve honour for their generosity in assisting our missions. f Milner is informed that it is the will and command of his Holiness, that he shall take no part in * " The Orthodox Journals for October and November were forwarded by Dr. Poynter to Rome as soon as they appeared, and they issue from the press the last day of the month ; and from ten to fifteen days is the average passage of a letter to and from Rome." (Rev. John Lee, secretary to Dr. Poynter, to Kirk, iSth May, 1820.) t The last paragraph refers to the attacks upon the Catholic Lords who supported the veto. J 79 i8o LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD future in the said Journal, directly or indirectly; shall in no way promote or patronize it; and this he must " promptly and fully obey, under pain of being re- moved from his vicariate." Milner obeyed, and the Journal, deprived of his sup- port and contributions, flickered out of existence the following month.* It was characteristic of Lingard that the only refer- ence in his correspondence to this silencing and hum- bling of his great antagonist, occurred in a letter written after the publication of the next volume of his History, — ^that he heard of no censures on his work, " as there is no Orthodox now for Dr. Milner to write in." f This, the fourth volume, appeared on the 1 5th October, 1820, and dealt with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Lingard had now triumphantly established his repu- tation for impartiality. Writing to Gradwell (17th May, 1820) to ask for further transcripts of docu- ments, he says : " In a word you see what I want — whatsoever may serve to make the catholic cause appear respectable in the eyes of a British public. I have the reputation of impartiality — therefore have it more in my power to do so. I feel much the loss of you : but console myself with the reflection that you are of more utility where you are. May you prosper and yours." In writing the story of Henry VIII, Lingard was run- ning counter to the picture drawn of that monarch and his times in all previous histories published in England, —by Rapin, Goldsmith, Carte, Smollett, and Hume, to mention only the greatest— and it behoved him not only * Andrews re-established it in January, 1823, but it ceased to appear at the end of the following year. t Lingard to Gradwell, 18th February, 1821. LUTHER'S EPISTLES i8i to liave an established reputation for impartiality, but an overwhelming weight of documentary evidence be- hind him. So his thirst for original papers appears insatiable, to within a few months of the publication of that volume. The priceless reports of Chapuys, the imperial ambassador at Henry's court, to Charles V still slept, unknown to Lingard, on the shelves of the archives of Vienna. They were only to come to light after his death, and to give his work an additional triumph by still further proving and corroborating its statements. They did more: they bore witness in more than one instance, as in the case of Mary Boleyn, that his historical sense had with long practice become in a manner intuitive, probing deeper than the apparent meaning of the facts and docimients before him. Rawdon Brown had not begun the publication of the Venetian ambassadors' reports; but Lingard had foimd one or two transcripts in the Barberini archives in Rome, and he begs Gradwell to find him some more, if possible. That he took nothing on trust is shown in the following letter to the Rev. Dr. Weedall, at Oscott College (April 13th, 1820), asking if Luther's f/o/s^/^s were in the library there. " I do not know the book: but Pallavicini often quotes the tomi epistolorum as dififerent from the operum Lutheri. ... I would have you look up Ep. 56 tomi primi. It is a letter from Luther to the Elector Frederick, written in i 5 1 8, September or October, requesting him to refuse him' a passport to go to Rome, and to antedate the refusal, that it may appear he had made the request for one in time, with several sophisms to prove such a denial no falsehood. This is related by Pallavicini in his history of the Council of Trent, VI, c. 7 : but I have so often been misled by quotations, that I fear to assert it on his authority alone. ... In like manner I have a quotation ... of a passage in a letter of Luther ad l82 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Argentine nses (the people of Strasburg) saying that he was moved to undertake the reformation through hatred of Rome. If you can find this I should thank you for the page and volume in which it occurs." So too does Lingard distrust the published letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn in Hearne's edition of Avesbury and Walpole's Harteian Miscellany ; and he charges Gradwell to get him true copies of the original letters in the Vatican archives, as he is " desirous to expose that mirror of chastity, Anne Boleyn, in her true colours." The first edition (looo) of the first three volumes of his History is nearly sold out, he continues, and Mawman talks of a second edition; " but neither he nor I sihall be in a hurry about one — not he, for he will then have to pay me 500 guineas . . . nor I, till I learn what the Edinburgh and Quar- terly reviewers may say of it, th^t I may make correc- tions, if necessary, or vindicate myself." The success of the fourth volume was even greater than that of its predecessors. His publisher wrote to Lingard that it was in great measture due to the en- comiums passed on it in all companies by Lord Grey; and that Mr. Petrie, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, reputed the first authority in England, had expressed his great approbation of the work. In thank- ing Mr. Mawman for the loan of some books, Lingard wrote, 1 8th February, 1 8 2 1 : " The approbation of Mr. Petrie and also of Lady Spencer is highly flattering, and I feel myself under many obligations to Dr. Blomfield, for the interest which he appears to take in the success of the work." * * Lavinia, daughter of Charles Bingham, first Earl Lucan, married George John, second Earl Spencer, in 1781. She was a woman of great beauty and intelligence, brilliant of conversation, and for many years well nigh the most prominent lady in London society — the friend of a singularly large number of eminent men. She died in 1836. Her husband was presi- AN ANONYMOUS CRITIC 183 The British Critic, which had always treated him with hostility, now surprised him by its praise. " It does me the honour," he wrote to Gradwell, " to com- pare my work with Hume's . . . owns that in some points my publication is superior: and then proceeds to give me advice how to treat the reign of Elizabeth." On the other hand, the former strictures of Dr. Milner had, as Lingard had noticed, produced a certain effect. The new volume elicited, through Dr. Kirk, a long criticism from an anonymous correspondent, which Lin- gard received with his usual good humour. He deemed it important, he answered, to become acquainted even with the unfavourable opinions of intelligent readers. If we may judge, however, by Lingard's answers, the intelligence of his critic was not of a very high order. He asks why the word " virtue " is never used until p. 372)', has Lingard a particular objection to the word, or was there so little virtue in Henry's reign that he had no use for it?i Lingard replies that it would take too much time to search through the volume, but as Queen Katherine, the Carthusian monks. Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thdmas More were virtuous characters, he had looked into the paragraphs concerning them, and had found the word on pp. 118, 208, 210, 217, and it probably occurred on many others. One of the critic's inquiries elicits an interesting answer — ^why Lingard had said that all the monks had submitted to the King's supremacy, when there must have been many in every commimity ready to brave persecution?! ' " If I must disclose the reason, (he will perhaps ap- prove of my silence in the history) I will answer with dent of the Royal Institute, a trustee of the British Museum, one of the founders and first president of the Roxburgh Club. Henry Petrie (1768-1842), antiquary, was the son of a dancing-master. Lord Spencer encouraged him in his researches, and on the death of Samuel Lysons in 1819 Petrie was appointed Keeper of the Records in the Tower. i84 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Cardinal Pole, that the monks of that period were men of little reputation, and had entirely (prorsus) degenerated from the spirit of their original institute. The only ex- ceptions which he allows are in favour of the Brigittines, a single house, and the Carthusians and Observantines, the least numerous of the orders. The rest were a degenerate, time-serving class of men." * This assertion is important, not only as a proof of Lingard's open-mindedness, and of his fidelity to the material at his command; but because the revelations of documents w^hich have come to light since his death amply show, that if there were not many monks ready to brave martyrdom, there were hundreds, if not thou- sands, who fled from England to the convents of their orders abroad, either permanently to remain there, or to return in the reign of Mary. Cardinal Pole's delight in restoring the Benedictines to Westminster, his pro- ject of restoring them to Canterbury, only interrupted by bis death, also militate against the rather sweeping assertion quoted by Lingard. f Dr. Milner's old complaint that Lingard showed no " tone of piety " in his History is reasserted by his new critic, some of whose remarks Lingard fears have been written " under the influence of a strong prepossession " against him or his work. " Tell him to read it again," he adds, " and I trust his candour will teach him to form a more favourable judgment." As to the lack of " a tone of piety," he can but repeat that if he wished * Lingard to Kirk, 25th November, 1820. t The Dominicans returned to Smithfield, the Franciscans to Greenwich, and the Bridgittines to Syon House. The Venetian ambassador, after reporting the "infinite pleasure" with which Cardinal Pole had reopened in person the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, ' ' to replace in possession several fathers of that order who had retired to Flanders, from whence they now return," adds "that not a day passes without discovering persons who retire to monasteries." {Ven. Cal.,\X, 704.) Henry Penning, Pole's secretary, found, in I5S3> large colonies of these refugees at Louvain and at Li^ge. (Vatican MS,, Fiandra, I, 174, 180-4.) Being under Flanders, these im- portant papers escaped Gradwell's researches in the Vatican archives. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH 185 to do good, he must write as an independent spectator. " Time and experience must judge between us. Should their verdict be against me, no one will deplore my misjudgment more than myself." Then he good- humouredly concludes the subject: "But though catholics cannot discover my religion in my work, I have not been able to conceal it from protestants. Mawman wrote to me on Thursday that the British Quarterly Review contains a very favourable critique on the three first volumes with some censure . . . merely to pave the way for a greater disagreement on the subject of the Reformation: but that I ought to be aware and to be prepared for a host of orthodox critics, who will assail me on the subject of the fourth volume."* The end of this long and interesting letter contains a true prophecy with regard to Sir James Mackintosh : " I hear from pretty good authority, that the Scottish literati had determined to have the national glory of fur- nishing the only approved histories of England. These were to be Hume and Sir James Mackintosh. The last you probably know has already sold his history and re- ceived the price, though it is probable from his habits of indolence that he will never publish a single volume: that it was therefore resolved in Constable's divan not to notice my work in the hope that it would be stifled in the birth; but that now finding that the first volumes have sold, and a fourth has been published, they have resolved to review it. I suspect that Sir J. Mackintosh is to be the critic. He has lately had a long conversation with Mawman on the subject, who says he was greatly amused with Sir James, who disguised but clumsily the real object of his enquiries." f * Lingard to Kirk, loth December, 1820. t Sir James Macliintosh, Kt. (1765-1832), philosopher. He refused a seat in Parliament in 1812, on his return from India, because it would have pledged him to resist the immediate repeal of Roman Catholic disabilities. He was one of the chief celebrities at Holland House, and began his researches for a history of England from the Revolution of 1688 to the French Revolu- tion, immediately upon his return from India. He collected fifty volumes of MS. notes but, as Lingard had foreseen, went no further. i86 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD His publisher's faith in Lingard's impartiality was strikingly exemplified by a suggestion, that he should in the next volume " give a dissertation on the conse- quences of the Reformation." Lingard had the same answer ready for Mr. Mawman as for the critics among his own people : [21st December, 1820.] " I do not see that it is neces- sarily connected with my subject. I write the history of England, not of Europe: and if I occasionally notice its effects in England as occurrences arise, I think I do all that is required of me. Indeed were I to write such a dissertation ex professo and to say what I think, I should probably displease the majority of my readers, both protestants and catholics, and rather injure than promote the sale of the book. ... I am proud of Lord Grey's approbation." The new volume was received with enthusiasm at Rome. While it was being perused with delight in the English College, it was bespoken by the Scots College and the Irish Dominicans, then by Monsignor Testa, the Pope's secretary, and by the procturator-general of the Bamabites. " Their eagerness is extreme," wrote Gradwell ( 1 9th May, 1 8 2 1 ), and he ends his letter: " You must have the title of D.D. postfixed to your name on the title-page of the next volume." * In a review of Sismondi's History of France, in the Edin- burgh of October, the critic makes the candid ad- mission that " There are few countries in which the truth of history has suffered more than in England, from the indolence with which' almost every one of our * Lady Spencer, the chief leader of literary society at home, had approved and praised Lingard's History ; and its praises at Rome were sung by a greater lady still — Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire (daughter of fourth Earl of Bristol, 1759-1824) — who, after her husband's death in 1814, had settled in Rome, where her palace was the resort of all the brilliant society gathered together from all countries. The duchess spent large sums on excavations in the Forum, and was a liberal patron of the 6ne arts. •A CANDID ADMISSION 187 modern historians has taken the basis of his narrative from his predecessors. A better spirit has indeed lately shown itself, particularly in the work of Mr. Lingard, which, when it is completed, will call for our most serious attention." In the meantime Dr. Gradwell had come on a visit to England, bringing an excellent report of the flourish- ing and peaceful state of the college under his care. The two friends had every opportunity of meeting, as Gradwell took up his quarters at Preston, in Lanca- shire; and when he retiu-ned to Rome at the end of September, 1820, he took with him Lingard 's young cousin, William Hall. This young man, Lingard's only near male relative, had been educated at his expense for the Church at Ushaw^ and was now going to com- plete his studies in the English College at Rome. He was, according to Gradwell's report of him (21st Janu- ary, 1822), "a very fine and good lad," and "an universal favourite among both our collegians and the Romans." Unfortunately the seeds of ill-health were already sown in William Hall's constitution, which were to occasion his return to England and his premature death four years later. " I am very sorry," continues Gradwell, " that since the last summer his hearing is rather worse than it was. He complains that in dull and wet weather he cannot hear the lectures in school. I will do all that the best advice can suggest in spring, which to us is near at hand." Pope Pius VII's " quod scripsi, scripsi " had put an end to the agitation in favour of Stonyhurst; and Father Plowden's sudden death at Jougn^, on the French frontier, on his homeward journey after a stay of about eight months in Rome, deprived that cause of its chief combatant. Not until 1826 could Propaganda be again persuaded to speak in favour of the Jesuits. i88 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD George III died in January, 1820, and with the accession of his son the struggle for emancipation entered into its last decade: the Catholic body, ever tugging at the bonds which deprived it of its liberties, put fresh energy into its efforts, and one of the first addresses made to George IV was the petition of the Catholic Board, signed by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Surrey and Shrewsbury, and all the British and Scotch bishops, Dr. Milner alone excepted. When presenting a similar petition to the House of Commons, the following year. Lord Nugent remarked that among the eight thousand persons who had signed it, the sole representative of the four baronies remaining which had belonged to barons who signed Magna Charta — the Duke of Norfolk — ^had signed this petition.* Mr. Plun- ket, who had charge of the petition of the Irish Roman Catholics, in a memorable speech on the 28th Feb- ruary, 1 82 1, opened a debate which lasted until two bills were passed in the Commons on the 2nd April by nineteen votes — ^the first " A bill for the removal of the disqualifications under which his Majesty's roman catholic subjects now labour"; the second, "A bill to regulate the intercourse between persons in holy orders, professing the roman catholic religion, with the See of Rome." Lord Donoughmore brought in the measure in the House of Lords, where, after two days' debate, in which Lords Grenville and Lansdowne ener- getically pleaded in its favour, it was lost by a majority of thirty-nine votes. The title of the second bill — restricting intercourse with Rome — ^was calculated to awaken the suspicion of the papal court ; but as Gradwell, who was the bishops' agent there, wrote to Lingard ( 1 9th May) : * C. Butler, Hist. Mem., IV, 376. The Duke of Norfolk was Bernard Edward Howard, twelfth duke (i 765-1842). "VIOLENCE OF DR. MILNER " 189 " Rome has shown great moderation and good sense in the whole progress of the bill. It was thought that the passing of the bill would bring certain advantages, and that if any of the restrictions, pared as they were almost to nothing by the prudent negociations of Dr. Poynter, should Come out too severe, it would be easy to apply a remedy afterwards. When it was known that most of the bishops were of opinion that the oath might be law- fully taken, and the Peers had been forced, by the violence of Dr. Milner and the imprudence of Dr. Hayes to declare to Parliament their readiness to take it, the question was considered as decided." Dr. Poynter 's chief adviser in his dealings with the ministry was Lingard. The latter ends a letter to the Bishop on the i8th March: " The amendment of Mr, Plunket, as transcribed by your lordship, appears to me satisfactory.* . . . Your lordship has an arduous task upon your hands. I have, however, no doubt that by a proper union of firmness and condescension you will get through it with credit to yourself and advantage to Catholics. That you have no other prelate [Poynter at this moment was without a co- adjutor] to assist you, is in my opinion a favourable cir- cumstance. Coadjutors would only bother and perplex the business. From another quarter I know that the Committee (parliamentary Committee I mean) are highly pleased with the frankness of your lordship's explana- tions." What Dr. Gradwell in his above-quoted letter had termed " the violence of Dr. Milner " had taken the shape of two documents, The theological judgment of the catholic divines of the Midland District, on the two bills pending in Parliament, and a petition^ pre- * Plunket, Wm. Conyngham, first Baron Plunket (1764-1854). His speech on this occasion was described by Peel, twenty years later, as stand- ing " nearly the highest in point of ability of any ever heard in this House." 190 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD sented by Mr. Wilberforce on the i6th March, the day of the second reading of the bill, expressing " the grief and dismay " of the Catholics at their contents, " as containing articles contrary to their religious belief and obligations." The adversaries of emancipation seized upon this petition with avidity, as a document ruinous to the measure; the advocates of the bill declared it to be entitled to no attention, as it had not, to use the language of Sir James Mackintosh, " re- ceived the signattu'e of a single leading catholic gentle- man in the coimties from which it came, except, in- deed, it were that of Dr. Milner, the apostolic vicar." * It nevertheless created a moment of great " anxiety and interest," as Mr. Edward Blount, who had at- tended all the debates, wrote to Dr. Kirk, and he con- tinued, " Dr. Milner aimed a fatal blow at us, but his shaft fell harmless." t The petition was signed, it further appeared, in and about Wolverhampton, where Dr. Milner lived, the Potteries and Birmingham; and Dr. Kirk, at Lichfield, one of the most prominent ecclesiastics in the district, never saw it, and only heard of it by accident. J As for the other document, Lingard wrote: " I have seen the Theological Judgment, and I think it is the worst-written thing that has yet come from the pen of the theological judge." And with the inaccuracy which so often afflicted him. Dr. Milner gave to 3. paper, signed only by himself, his secretary, and one other priest the title of the judgment of The Catholic Divines of the Midland District. Bishop Thomas Smith, coadjutor of the Northern District, wished Lingard to throw out a petit ecrit against the Theological Judg- ' Chas. Butler, Bist. Mem., Vol. IV, p. 355. + Edward Blount was the brother of Sir Walter Blount, of Sodington, Worcester. X Kirk to Lingard, 23rd March, 1821. DEATH OF BISHOP GIBSON 191 merit; but, as the latter wrote to Dr. Poynter, while ready to do anything, in his power to reconcile the Catholic mind to the bill, he was doubtful of the policy of giving rise to a printed controversy. He therefore abstained from any public notice of the documents, though in a private letter he at once ppinted out a serious mistake in the Judgment, where the terra re- vision is used: "The bill does not give a right of revision," he wrote to Dr. Kirk (26th March), "i.e. correction or emendation, but imposes the duty of mani- festation, that if the bull contain anything dangerous to the peace of the realm, or the civil rights of the subject, precautions may be taken " ; and it is curious to find this faithful son and stalwart champion of the Church giving expression to the opinion, that some restraint upon appeals to Rome was not an undesirable thing. Dr. Kirk had written to him that he was sure " great evils in past times had arisen from the want of some restraint," to which Lingard replied in the above-quoted letter : " I agree with you that it would have been a happy thing, if some restraint had been formerly imposed on the correspondence with Rome. We should not now have any penal laws to contend with. ... I should think it sufficient to leave matters of conscience to the discretion of those who receive answers on those subjects. 'As to the other things, let some punishment be inserted in general terms against any one who shall put in use, enforce or execute any order from Rome that has not previously been subjected to the Commissioners." * Bishop Gibson died on the 2nd June, 1821, and was succeeded by his coadjutor. Dr. Thomas Smith, as * It is to be regretted that Lingard nowhere develops his theory on the question of "restraint" on correspondence with Rome, nor gives any explana- tion of how he arrived at it. He probably referred to the quarrels between the seculars and regulars and consequent appeals to Rome in the seventeenth century, which helped to prevent any relaxation of the penal laws. 192 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD vicar-apostolic of the Northern District. In the terna which Dr. Smith sent in the following year to Rome for a coadjutor for himself^ he inserted Lingard's name. Dr. Milner, ever on the alert^ spared no effort to oppose the appointment, employing as his principal weapon his conviction of the imorthodoxy of the History. He had, as we have seen, in trying to get a condemnation of the work from the Irish bishops, merely elicited' their imanimous verdict of praise and approval of the book, with the conviction of its usefulness. Unin- fluenced and undeterred by these encomiums, Milner, who was nothing if not consistent in his prejudices, proceeded to present memorials to Rome to have the History censured. He signally failed in both instances to injure his antagonist; never was noto episcopari uttered more sincerely and earnestly than by John Lin- gard. All the reasons he had given to Dr. Poynter for declining the presidentship of St. Edmund's Col- lege, and the coadjutorship of the Western District, were more than ever valid now; and, as he wrote to Dr. Kirk (13th October, 1823), had he felt assured that his name was first on the terna he would have written to make a formal refusal of the office : " The more I think of the thing, the more I am of the opinion which I mentioned to you at Lichfield, I see nothing in the office but trouble and vexation, and in particular of the last plenty, and more than plenty, from — Stonyhurst." The whole bent of Lingard's character was against bearing the episcopal ofiSce with its responsibilities and duties, so foreign to his modesty and natural reluc- tance to give pain ; while the work of his life — ^his History — would have been brought to a sudden and untimely end. These considerations weighed with the authorities, and Dr. Penswick, Lingard's fellow-student DEGREE OF D.D. 193 at Douay, was elected coadjutor to Dr. Smith.* Dr. Milner's efforts to get the History condemned in Rome were equally futile: Lingard described them to Dr. Kirk in his letter of 13th October: " You are acquainted with the denunciation of my work at Rome by the angel of Castabala.f Of course nothing has been done. I have desired Gradwell to take no part in the business. If the Propaganda have time to throw away on such nonsense, they have the book, let them judge for themselves." Rome had expressed its opinion of Lingard's work two years previously, when the sovereign pontiff, 24th August, 1 821, paid him the honour of a special brief to confer upon him the triple academic laurel — ^the degree of doctor in divinity, in civil, and in canon law, in recognition of his discharge of his missionary duty, his exertions in the education of youth at Ushaw Col- lege, his learned works and his defence of the Holy See. At the same time the degree of D.D. was con- ferred upon Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Archer,^ and Robert Gradwell. § Cardinal Consalvi wished to make them all Monsignori, esteeming the title of D.D. — which in Rome could be obtained by a divinity student for a successful defensiones — insufhcient; but Gradwell ob- jected that the title of monsignore was unknown in England, upon which the Pope determined to make them doctors himself sab annulo. Other persons ap- plied for the same privilege, which Pius VII refused, saying it was an extraordinary compliment to extra- * Thomas Penswick, D D. (1772-1836). He escaped from Douay, October I2th, 1793, the day before the arrest of the president and students of the college. t Dr. Milner's title was Bishop of Castabala in partibus. X James Archer, d.d. (1751-1834). He was an indefatigable missionary, and considered the most eloquent preacher in England. § Gradwell to Lingard, 21st January, 1822. On August loth, 1S22, Lin- gard was elected a member of the Accademia di Religione Cattolica of Rome. O 194 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD ordinary merit, and that he did not mean to introduce it as a precedent. His old friend Thomas Penswick sent his congratu- lations in the following note: ''Cher et venerable docteur, — All your good qualities, like your bonnet de docteur, entitle you to respect." The success of his fourth volume brought numerous offers of help to Lingard, rare books flowed in from every side, either spontaneously or in answer to his appeals; and the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Blount ofifered, through Dr. Kirk, to supply him with money for his researches. The money he declined : " As long as I can procure the loan of books, I hope I shall not stand in need of it. I am, however, equally obliged to his grace and Mr. Blount. For the reign of Elizabeth ... it is my wish to compose it entirely (or at least as far as may be) from the original letters and papers." A list of publications follows : some he has, and the others are in the Chetham Library, Manchester ; but he would like to have them at home, " for on many sub- jects the only sure way of coming at the truth is to compare together the different letters in the several collections, which allude to the same thing." The Duke of Norfolk sent him the Ambassades de Noailles and a box of other books as a gift, and Lingard writes to Kirk (March 26th) that on receipt of his letter: " Before I had read half of it, I sprang from my chair, and ran round the room exclaiming 'Vive le Due de Norfolk.' I shall now be quite set up for a long time, and trust that by collating so many original papers, I shall be able to make a history of Elizabeth, etc., some- thing different from those we now have." The veritable history of Elizabeth was so contrary to the generally accepted picture of that sovereign, that CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH 195 the soul of the publisher was troubled: he feared it might hinder the tsale of the forthcoming volume. Lingard's answer is interesting: " You observed in a note some time ago that Elizabeth did not appear a very amiable character. I can assure you, I have not set down ought in malice, nor am I con- scious that I have ever exaggerated. On the contrary, I have been careful to soften down what might have ap- peared too harsh to prejudiced minds: and not to let any severe expressions escape, that I may not be thought a partial writer. I should be sorry to say anything that may hurt the sale of the book, and on that account have been particularly guarded in the conclusion, where I touch upon her character. However, if there be any expression which you may think likely to prove prejudicial, I shall be ready to change it. Perhaps I should observe to you that in quoting the records of Simancas, I do not mention the n°. or the page, etc., as in quoting other documents. This arises from the jealousy of the Spaniards, or rather the standing orders of the place. The officials will not allow my friend to take any notes. He can only read them, and write down what he remembers, when he leaves." In returning some books to Mr. Mawman (i 8th May, 1823), Lingard says: " Your other books I will retain for a short time, merely to be ready for Dr. Milner, if I find it necessary to answer him. ... Of this I am assured, he can do little harm." The evidence still extant in the numerous documents of which attested copies reached Dr. Lingard from France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, abundantly bear witness to the reticence he exercised in dealing, vdth Queen Elizabeth and her times — so far as his duty as a faithful chronicler would permit. The first-fruits of his History were devoted to build- 196 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD ing a new chapel at Hornby: a modest edifice, but palatial in comparison with the room in the house which it replaced, and still sufficient for the Catholic inhabit- ants of the village to this day. The work was scarcely finished when there occurred the failure of the " Lan- caster Bank," and if to be " undated by prosperity and undismayed by adversity " be characteristic of the true christian man, Lingard could lay claim to the title. He received the unexpected blow with his wonted philosophy, rejoicing, as he wrote to Gradwell (20th February, 1822), that he had paid all his bills for the building before the crash came. " Till 1 receive my dividends in May," he continues, " I must contrive to live without money and upon credit, for I am quasi without: a shilling." Lingard's love of the beautiful valley in which he lived, shows itself in a letter to Mr. Mawman, who paid him a visit in April. " You came to Hornby at a bad season," he writes on the ist May. " The country now is most beautiful. When I may visit you I cannot tell : but I trust that will not deprive the Vicar of Hornby of the pleasure of your company the next time you come this way." The " Vicar of Hornby " was the title often playfully assumed by Lingard, in contradistinction to his friend the Rector. In August Lingard's cousin, William Hall, arrived at Hornby from Rome. On account of his deafness Mr. Gillow, president of Ushaw, would not receive him ; so he remained at Hornby, help- ing the Doctor with his writing, — ^the only amanuensis the latter ever regularly employed. When writing to thank Dr. Gradwell for his kindness to young Hall, Lingard informs him that Mawman is now giving an octavo edition of his work. " It is beautiful. The paper, type and ink are all superior to the quarto edition. I mean my next volume to appear about RENARD'S DESPATCHES 197 March or April." He then adds the interesting in- formation : " Since the death of Father Plowden, the gentlemen of Stonyhurst proceed on a very different plan. They are particularly civil to the clergy. They have spon- taneously furnished me with several scarce books; among others with the MS. account of the Gunpowder plot in English, in the very handwriting of Father Gerard. You sent me from Rome the Italian translation in MS. The English MS. is perpetually corrected by another hand, and the Italian comprehends the corrections." * The friendly correspondence between Lingard and Stonyhtnst led to an invitation from the rector, Father Sewell, to go there, which Lingard regretfully de- clined, as he could seldom prevail upon himself to go from home. At the same time he mentions the new edition of his work, requesting as a favour that if any of the gentlemen at Stonyhurst have discovered any errors in those volumes, they will let him know, that they may be corrected. As the new volume, dealing with Mary and Elizabeth, drew near completion, Lingard's eagerness seemed to increase for yet more information in support of his contentions, — contentions absolutely new to the public, but which subsequent revelations have placed beyond all doubt. By the help of Dr. Poynter and the Arch- bishop of Paris he obtained copies of Renard's original despatches at Besangon, to the Emperor Charles V, and we have his series of questions to the transcriber to prove, as he wrote to Dr. Poynter (29th October, 1822), " in opposition to our historians, 1° that Mary chose the Prince of Spain at the persuasions of the Emperor. * This would give colour to the rumour that there had always been an " anti- Plowden " party at Stonyhurst, mentioned by Charles Butler to Lin- gard in a letter of October 28th, 1822. igS LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD 2° That it was in opposition to the advice of Gardiner. 3° That she was kind to Lady Jane Grey. 4° That Eliza- beth became, in appearance at least, a sincere catholic. 5° That Elizabeth and Courtenay were privy to the con- spiracy of Wyatt. 6° That the object of the conspiracy was to place these two on the throne." Lingard was equally anxious, before going to press, to disprove, if possible, the authenticity of Cardinal Allen's Admonition to the Catholics, printed for the purpose of being dispersed in England at the moment of invasion by the Armada — not to be confounded with his Admonition at an earlier period, which was a very good work. " It is perhaps the most virulent libel," he wrote to Gradwell when asking his help in the matter, " ever written. I would give anything to prove it a forgery for his honoiur and that of the catholics. After such a publication I am not surprised at anything Elizabeth might do against the catholics." Lingard's grounds for disbelieving in the document are the signa- ture, which is simply " The Cardinal," given from his lodgings in " the palace of St. Peter in Rome, 28th April, 1588," and the dissimilarity in style from any- thing Allen had ever written. He asks Gradwell if cardina,ls have ever signed themselves " The Cardinal " instead of their name; and the fact that the kings of Spain always sign " I, the King," tends to confirm his suspicion, that the document is a forgery concocted by some of the exiles in the Spanish army. Gradwell's answer (i8th November, 1822) is satisfactory. He always considered the Admonition a forgery; he has looked for it in vain in Rome: the signature "The Cardinal " never was the style in Rome. — " I have spoken to two eminent antiquarians on the subject who are of the same opinion. In the next place the Admonition is dated from the ' Palace of St. Peter.' ALLEN'S " ADMONITION " 199 This can mean nothing else than the Vatican palace . . . but that palace is never called ' St. Peter's Palace "... the Bullarium shows this. ... I believe this never was the style of a cardinal's signature. I have not yet dis- covered any reason to suppose that Cardinal Allen eve lived at the Vatican at the time when the Admonition was dated, ... He was made Bibliothecarius Apos- tolicus by Gregory XIV after the death of Cardinal Antonio Carafifa, who only died January, 1591. . . . Besides, Ciaconius says in the life of Allen, which is written with great study and knowledge of the subject, that all Cardinal Allen's English works, on account of their utility, were translated into Latin, but I do not find the Admonition among them." At the moment of the publication of this important volume, we find the publisher more nervous than the historian with regard to Dr. Milner. " Mr. Mawman teUs me," wrote Lingard to Bishop Poynter (20th May, 1823), "that Dr. Milner will certainly attack me." " I suspect I frightened him before: and I hope to do so again by spreading a report that I mean to re- taliate. Perhaps he will be silent: if he is not, the nature of his censure must decide my conduct: I am aware that my book must displease : for I have never quoted him or even referred to him. In truth, I considered the matter, and determined not to do so, because I found his works so full of historical errors that I am sure, in the course of a few years, they will be considered of no authority what- ever. The influence of his imagination over his judgment is wonderful." Dr. Milner was silent, so far as regarded any pub- lished answer from his pen; in fact, in the previous year he had expressed his surprise, in the Catholic Magazine, that the editor had not yet noticed " Dr. Lingard's splendid History of England." But his ani- mosity had suffered no diminution, and he again carried 200 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD his complaints to Rome, addressing several memorials to Propaganda to have the work censured. " Do not trouble yourself about me and Dr. Milner," was all Lingard's comment to Gradwell; "he cannot get the work censured: and the failure of the attempt will only serve to give it greater celebrity." And Dr. Gradwell was able to assure him (25th March, 1824) that Propaganda paid little attention to Dr. Milner's letters against him. " The Doctor is so well known here," he adds, " that anything vituperative resting on his sole authority is received with suspicion. O'Finan's [Dr. Milner's agent in Rome] memorials on the same subject are almost waste paper." * Besides the fifth volume of his History, Lingard published in this year the Supplementum ad Breviarum — the Lessons for the offices of the English Saints in the breviary, which were sanctioned by authority, and have ever since been in use by the English Catholic clergy, f But so much continued close application was beginning to tell, and we find the first allusion to the effects of overwork in a letter to Gradwell of the 17th May, 1820: "I am grown subject to a giddiness in the head which prevents my application now, and probably will do." Immediately after the publication * Dr. Milner reasserted his old complaints with regard to St. Thomas of Canterbury, to which he added two new ones : that Lingard spoke of the aposiacy of Ridley being chastised by Bradford, and a perfectly imaginary assertion that the author had praised Cranmer for his arguments against tho Mass. The only response made by the Roman Court consisted in Monsignor Mai, the librarian of the Vatican, ordering a copy of the work for the papal library. Nevertheless, among a section of Dr. Milner's admirers the prejr.dice created by that prelate lived on : e.g. in the notice in the Tablet on Lingard's death : in 1855, four years later, we may find an echo of it in the June number of the Dublin Review ; and in 1866, Monsignor Talbot, in a defamatory attack on Dr. Newman, wrote: "It is simply absurd in Dr. Newman to quote Lingard, Rock, and Tierney as authorities. Lingard has used expressions in his History which one can hardly understand how a Catholic could use them." (Purcell, Life of Cardinal Manning, Vol. II, p. 322.) + Dr. Gradwell wrote to the Rev. R. Thompson that Lingard's Lessons were much admired at Propaganda. His plan was "to abridge the original authors, still preserving their very words." "A JAUNT TO PARIS" 201 of his fifth volume he therefore took a holiday, going with a friend on what he calls "a jaunt to Paris "; and on his return to London made the personal ac- quaintance, through Mr. Mawman, of Dr. Blomfield, to their great mutual satisfaction. He also went to Win- chester to see his mother — probably his last visit to her before her final illness the following year. Dr. Gradwell was in England, and Lingard was anxious to meet him. " Shall we ever or never meet?" he wrote from London in July, upon hearing that Grad- well was at St. Edmund's College. " Cannot we contrive to go to Lancashire together? My plan is to go to Winchester to see my mother for one day, probably on Saturday. If you come to Lon- don before that day, we may arrange our future plans so as to make it convenient to go together." The friends hoped to meet at Oxford, but, writing on the 1 5th July to Mr. Mawman that he is " comfort- ably seated at Hornby once more," and to thank him for all his kind attention in London, Lingard adds that he had not met Dr. Gradwell at Oxford, but " as I entered Manchester on Friday last, I espied him in another coach. We joined and proceeded forward." Before Gradwell 's departure from England the news arrived of the death of Pope Pius VII (20th August), the " poor good old pontiff," as Lingard described him in sending the news to Gradwell, who, he fears, may already have started on his Romeward journey; and, after hearing of Cardinal Delia Genga's elevation to the papal throne with the title of Leo XII, Lingard wrote to Dr. Kirk (13th October, 1823): "The Padri are in ecstasies that Consalvi is not the new Pope." Four months later Cardinal Consalvi was no more, and Lingard, upon hearing of his death, wrote to Grad- well, 20th February, 1824: 202 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " It affected me much. I was attached to him on account of his kindness to me when at Rome, on account of his great talents, etc., and on account of his friendship for you and your establishment. What the consequences may be it is folly for me to predict. Whom will you have for protector? Do as you did once before. Throw yourself on the protection of his Holiness. Will any attempt be made to your prejudice by my zealous neigh- bours in this county? I have no doubt you will be able to defeat them: much may be done I should think by gaining time, i.e. by requiring time if need be to consult the bishops in England." Lingard's fears with regard to any attempts on the English College in Rome proved groundless. Grad- well, in writing (25th March, 1824) of his own grief at Consalvi's death, who had left no equal behind! him — " even his oppositionists feeling his loss and see- ing the wisdom of his administration " — states that he (Gradwell) had anticipated Lingard's advice, and two days after the great Cardinal's death, on the 26th January, had gone to the Pope, requesting him to be the protector of the English College imtil there was time for the English bishops to petition for another. Leo XII consented, and by Gradwell 's advice Drs. Poynter and Bramston petitioned for Cardinal Zurla, which the Pope approved, in his own words to Grad- well, as "an excellent choice."* Before the end of the summer, death inflicted a nearer and more sensible blow upon John Lingard than the loss of pope and cardinal. Mrs. Lingard died at the beginning of August, — ^the woman who * J. Yorke Bramston, d.d. ( 1 753-1836). Originally a Protestant and a lawyer. After his conversion went to the English College at Lisbon. Bishop Poynter made him vicar-general in 1812. Was made coadjutor- Bishop in 1823, with right of succession. In announcing Dr. Bramston's appointment to the See of Usulae in partibus, Gradwell informed Lingard that Dr. Peter Augustus Baines, a Benedictine (1787-1843), had been made coadjutor bishop to Dr. Collingridge, vicar-apostolic of the Western District. DEATH OF MRS. LINGARD 203 could remember accompanying her parents furtively by night in her father's cart, the priest disguised in a countryman's smock with them, to fulfil at dawn, in secrecy and haste and peril of life, the obligations of their religion, had lived to see her son, a priest, reck- oned by Catholics and Protestants alike among the literary glories of his country. This happiness was hers a few weeks before she died, when her son was elected, on the 24th June, an honorary associate of the newly instituted Royal Society of Literature. Lingard announced his mother's death to his old pupil John Bradley (21st August, 1824): " My poor mother died on the 5th of this month, in her ninety- first or else ninety-third year. This is cer- tainly no very interesting news to you: but I mention it in the hope that you will remember her in your prayers." " My book sells well. Mawman talks of a third edition. The last volume, however, is not so popular as the others. Protestants cannot bear that a word should be said derog- atory from the virgin queen. Dr. Milner is equally hostile." The honour done to him by the Royal Society of Literature greatly pleased Dr. Lingard, as is shown by his letter announcing the fact to Dr. Gradwell, and that a similar honour had been accorded to Monsignor Angelo Mai, the Vatican librarian. Association carried with it the chance of £100 a year, from £1000 annu- ally given by the King, and £1000 by the Society, to twenty associates who undertook to write a disser- tation every year. " I have no chance," adds Lin- gard, "as I find that canvassing and all kinds of interest are employed to obtain thte annuity." CHAPTER X AMONG the adverse criticisms in pamphlets and . reviews which the fifth volume of Lingard's His- tory evoked, the most formidable was Southey's Book of the Church. Lingard informs Gradwell (20th Feb- ruary, 1824) that Southey was to have written a critique of the book, but it had swelled into a different work in two volumes, in which Lingard is not mentioned, but which will do the Catholics much harm. He wrote more explicitly to Mr. Mawman (February 14th): " I have lately looked through Southey's Church, and think it will add little to his reputation as an historian. It has plainly been written for a purpose, to please the high-church party; it was therefore unnecessary to be at the trouble of much research : he has consulted party- writers before him, and selected from them what he thought would be most pleasing to those whose approba- tion he sought. He may talk of having sufficient authority for his statements in his collections : but I suspect that, had he given these authorities, they would have proved to be not original documents, but statements made by persons heated with controversy and stimulated by preju- dice. In his reigns of Henry, Edward and Mary, he has done little more than make a compendium of Fox, and has related without the least semblance of a doubt as to their accuracy, the hearsay stories collected by that writer." In answer to a letter from Mawman announcing the elevation of Dr. Blomfield to the see of Chester, and 204 " HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE " 205 containing the prophecy that Lingard's History would be "the history of the people," the latter wrote (12th July, 1824) that he sincerely rejoiced both because Dr. Blomfield was Mawman's friend, and because it would afford him the pleasure of a visit from him: " The bishop of Chester will be able to give you a more splendid, but not a more hearty welcome than from the vicar of Hornby. . . . Whether my history will be, as you call it, the history of the people, I know not: but I persuade myself that no writer has hitherto sat down to the task more free from political prepossession than my- self." The cause of emancipation had now, in the estima- tion of the Catholics, secirrely established itself in the House of Commofns, and all their efforts were directed to the conversion of the House of Lords to the same opinion. The petition addressed to that House early in 1825 was drawn up by Lingard. It is short and spirited, the last clause but one running as follows : " They beseech your lordships to look around you, and to survey the other kingdoms of Christian Europe. Where will you find a spectacle like to that which the situation of your petitioners presents : a numerous race of loyal subjects, condemned to degradation and penalties for no other crime than a conscientious adherence to that faith which they have inherited from their forefathers. Your lordships owe it to yourselves, you owe it to the country, to remove this anomaly in the laws, this blot on the fair fame of the nation." In sending the sketch of the petition to Mr. Edward Blount, Lingard begged him to have no hesitation in rejecting it if he disapproved of it. " Admit it or reject it, add or curtail, alter and correct as you think best. I shall be sufficiently repaid if it be taken as a proof of my readiness to give the only aid in my power 2o6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD to the success of the common cause." Success was not yet to be: the bill brought in by Sir Francis Burdett on the 22nd March, 1825, passed the House of Com- mons by a majority of twenty-seven — eight more than on Mr. Plunket's bill in 1821, but it was lost by forty-eight votes in the House of Lords. Nevertheless, public feeling was growing ever stronger in favour of removing " this blot on the fair fame of the nation "; and it must have been a sincere satisfaction to Lingard to find that his History was spoken of in Rome, as one of the great causes which had wrought such a change in public sentiment in England on Catholic matters.* Never were author and publisher on better terms than were Lingard and Joseph Mawman: their mutual esteem and respect had grown into a firm friendship, of which the latter gave a proof at the beginning of 1825 by offering to take Lingard on a tour in Italy, after the publication of the next volume of the History, which Lingard had promised would be ready in the course of the summer. He had at the same time (January, 1825) asked for books regarding Charles I, and given the following information respecting Dr. Blomfield : " Your friend the Bishop of Chester has caused a great commotion in the Church, or at least among the Watchmen of the Holy City. He insists that they shall watch, and has forbidden them to hunt, shoot, dance at public balls, etc. To the young men whom he ordained he said that if they transgressed in any of these points * Gradwell to Lingard, 24th April, 1825. Catholic emancipation had no stouter champion than Sydney Smith. The "Excellent Speech of the Rev. Sydney Smith, Rector of Londesborough, in Yorkshire, at a Meeting of Clergy at the Tiger Inn, Beverley, Monday, May nth, 1825," was printed and widely circulated. While admitting that he ' ' stood alone " amongst his auditors, he pleaded earnestly and eloquently in favour of his Catholic countrymen. DR. ALLEN'S REVIEW 207 he should withdraw their licences. New brooms sweep clean." * As to Mr. Mawman's tempting invitation, Lingard at first feared he could not accept it, as the neigh- bouring priest, who would have supplied for him in his absence, was away; but a few days later he joy- fully announces th!at his bishop has given him leave of absence " for two months or thereabouts, which of course means three, or may be made so to mean." At this time, in the April number of the Edinburgh Review (Vol. XLII, pp. 1-3 1), appeared Dr. Allen's review of Lingard's History, placing the author among the most eminent of historians :t "His periods are poised, and musical in their cadence, with a variety in their structure that pleases without palling on the ear. His style is nervous and concise, and never enfeebled by useless epithets, or encumbered with redundant, unmeaning phrases. If it be deficient in the happy negligence and apparent ease of expression — if it want those careless, inimitable beauties which in Hume excited the despair and admiration of Gibbon — there is no other modern history with which it would not challenge a comparison," The reviewer then observes, "with sorrow," and in words quoted from Lingard's own preface, that he is one of those who " overlook every troublesome or adverse authority," and that he borrows " from his own fancy whatever is wanting for the support and em- bellishment " of his system. Twenty-seven pages are * A few months later Lingard sent through Mawman his thanks to Blom- field for a copy of his Charge. " I have lent it to several of his clergy, and have bantered them on the circumstance of my having a copy while they have not.' t John Allen, M.D. (1771-1843), was one of the select few to whom the plan of the Edinburgh Review was communicated by Jeffery and his co- adjutors. From 1805 until Lord Holland's death he was a regular inmate of Holland House. He was warden of Dulwich College from 1811 to 1820, and master from that time till his death. 2o8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD then filled with strictures on Lingard's Anglo-Saxon period, similar to those the same critic had heaped upon the Anglo-Saxon Church in 1815 {Edinburgh Review, XXV, p. 345). The story of Edwy and Elgiva and St. Dunstan again furnish' the text of Dr. Allen's contradictory version, and the rest of the re- view consists in a parallel between Lingard and Hume. " If a person of note is praised by Hume, he has a good chance of being represented in an odious light by Dr. Lingard ; and if censured by Hume, Dr. Lingard generally contrives to sa^y a word in his recommenda- tion." Dr. Allen did not know— and had he been told would probably not have believed — ^that from the mo- ment Lingard undertook the work he studiously avoided consulting Hume. " This resolution," he wrote to Mawman (23rd November, 1820), after stating that he hardly knew in what passages he differed from Hume, " I have only broken in a very few instances, so that in reality I have on almost every subject for- gotten his statements." When Lingard had looked into the review, he wrote to his publisher: "Hornby, June ijth, 1825. I must be allowed to state that I never could have expected to meet with such a mass of falsehood and mis- representation. What think you I ought to do? [A long list of the falsehoods follows.] But enough of this. I have written so much to show you that, if necessary, I could convict the reviewer of misrepresentations by whole- sale. Whether it be worth while or not, you are the best judge. I believe he feels sore on the subject of my answer to his critique on the Anglo-Saxon Church. I observe an equal dose of bad faith in the rest of his state- ments. Say what shall I do? Anything or nothing?" Mr. Mawman's answer to this letter — which shows greater signs of perturbation than any from its writer's PHILLPOTTS, BISHOP OF EXETER 209 pen — was evidently in favour of doing nothing, for Lingard took no steps to vindicate his own veracity. A less formidable antagonist was Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, who at this time published Letters to Charles Butler on his Book of the Catholic Church, in the fourth of which appeared some strictures on Dr. Lingard's work. Lingard replied in a letter to Butler, which the latter inserted in his own Vindication (London, 1826). Lingard wrote to Mr. Mawman (May, 1825): " I am surprised at the abuse of Dr. Phillpotts. When- ever we met formerly he was the meekest, the most obliging of human beings. I am surprised, I mean, that he should publish this abuse under his own name. . . . I shall have no difficulty in repelling his charges." Later in the year (7th December) he announces that he has done so : " As for Dr. Phillpotts, I have answered him, and I think satisfactorily, or rather most victoriously, in a letter to Mr. Butler. For as the attack was made upon me in a letter addressed by Phillpotts to Butler, it appears that the answer will be best understood and more widely circulated by being inserted in Mr. Butler's answer." In July the sixth volume of the History appeared — the preface is dated July 4th — ^and a few days later author and publisher started on their travels. Lingard wrote to Dr. Gradwell from Paris on the 14th, asking him to find rooms for them in a healthy part of Rome ; and from Turin, on the 29th, that they had arrived the previous night, and meant to proceed by Genoa, Lucca, and through Sienna to Rome : " The heat in Paris was extreme: it is very great here, but nothing equal to that at Paris, which, according to the inhabitants, exceeded anything known there before. 210 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD On the morning before we left, the thermometer stood at 94 in the shade between 8 and 9 o'clock." At Florence Lingard made the acquaintance of a Captain Parker, of the Navy, from whom he received the interesting information that in the Records of Malta there were many documents relative to English affairs; of which he could only remember one — a very interest- ing narrative of Babington's conspiracy, which had apparently been originally got up at Malta. Lord Strangford, whom Lingard met in London, confirmed Captain Parker's story, saying that he had read the MS. himself, and read it, too, in the public library of Malta.* Lingard thereupon applied through Dr. Poyn- ter to the Bishop of Malta for a copy of the said docu- ment, and of any other records there might be relative to English history, particularly of the year 1558. He concludes his letter to Dr. Poynter: " I suspect there will be few or none." None were forthcoming: the Bishop of Malta instituted diligent but unavailing search, and Lingard could only conclude that " there must have been a mistake somewhere." He could not doubt Lord Strangford's statement, because he men- tioned several things from the MS. which he had not known before, but which Lingard knew from other sources to be true. " Perhaps the MS. was not in the public library," he writes to Dr. Poynter, " but in the archives of the Order. . . . The MS. cannot have been carried away by the French, for it was on his way to his Embassy at Constantinople [August, 1820], or on his return from it [1824], that Lord Strangford had the perusal of it." The mystery, to Lingard's disappointment, remained unsolved. * Smythe, Percy Clinton, sixth Viscount Strangford (1780-1855). Strang- ford's taste for literature remained with him to the end. He was a F.S.A. in 1825, and a vice-president from 1852-4. SECOND VISIT TO ROME 211 Eight years had elapsed since LingarH's last visit to Rome, during which he had achieved fame and a foremost place among his fellow Catholics and fellow ecclesiastics. No warning denunciations arrived at Propaganda on this occasion. Dr. Milner, who had had two serious strokes of paralysis, was preparing, for his own end, and at peace with all the world, in- cluding the man whom he had deemed it his duty to denounce and persecute. Lingard was made welcome as one whom the sovereign pontiff delighted to honour, and in his numerous interviews with Leo XII received manj' marks of affectionate esteem. The Pope ex- pressed a great wish to retain him at Rome, asking what he could do to induce him to comply with his desire. Lingard urged his unfinished History, and, when Leo XII asked how long it would take to finish, made an indefinite answer. In his parting audience the Pope gave him the medal of the Jubilee year (1825) in gold, while a silver replica of the same medal was given to Bishop Poynter. Lingard was proud and happy to find the English College in the most flourishing condition, under the prudent and enlightened rule of the rector whom he had chosen; and its most noteworthy and brilliant student was Nicholas Wiseman, who had come to Ushaw — a little boy of seven years of age — two years before Lingard's departure from there.* Before the 1 8th October Lingard was at home again, for he wrote on that date to Mr. Mawman, to thank him for "the delightful tour." His pen was busy imme- diately on two learned and powerful articles which * Nicholas, Cardinal Wiseman (1802-1865). He crowned a brilliant academic career with the doctorate of theology in 1824, and was ordained priest in 1825. He succeeded Dr. Gradwell as rector in 1828. In 1840 was made Bishop of Melipotamus and coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, of the Midland District ; in 1850, Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster- 212 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD appeared in the British Critic (Vol. I, p. 309, and Vol. II, p. 78); one on the works of Johannes Corippus the poet-historian of the sixth century, the other on an Armenian version of Eusebius, which had been brought by his friend Mr. Brown from the Armenian Convent at Venice.* In a letter to their mutual friend, the Rev. John Bradley, Lingard gave an amusing account of Dr. Gradwell at Rome: "Hornby, 27 January, 1826. I saw your friend Polycarp in all his glory. But what surprised me most, he seems to be a great favourite with the Roman ladies. Wherever he was, I mean at a party, the first ladies in Rome were sure to speak to him. Can it be his beauty? I know not, but the fact is, there does not appear to be in Rome a man more respected than himself. His College is in high repute, and his young men have greatly distinguished themselves. The building itself is noble, much before Ushaw: though the situation is not the best in Rome. The Pope is a very gentlemanly man, and, as a proof of it, was very kind to me." Dr. Lingard had come back to Hornby to find that his young cousin, William Hall, had grown sensibly worse in health during the past three months. In spite of every care be died on Christmas Eve, 1825, "in the full possession of his senses, and with the most edifying sentiments of piety. R.I.P," wrote Lingard in sending the news to Dr. Gradwell. The only traces of William Hall's residence at Hornby are contained in a " Com- mon-Place Book " for 1824, a great part of which was written out by him — ^probably from Lingard's scattered notes. It was compiled in view of the two first Stuart reigns, and is extremely interesting as showing how * Probably the Rev. G. H. Brown, the priest at Lancaster. A COMMON- PLACE BOOK 213 exhaustively Lingard ptarsued every topic with which he meant to deal. That strangle scourge of Jacobean times for instance — the prevalence in England, as well as in Scotland, of witchcraft and its attendant horrors, not the least of which was the frightful trade of the " witch-finder," is traced through all its history and ramifications; including the sapient remarks of King James I to Sir John Harington " touching the power of Satan in matter of witchcraft," and asking him " with much gravitie " if he did " trulie understande why the devil did worke more with ancient women than others?"* Under the heading " Falsehood of James I," we find the utterances of that monarch with regard to the penal laws placed in juxtaposition, with this comment at the end — " So much for royal veracity! " The sources drawn from in this one year's gleanings are extraordinary in range and variety, proving the minute and ceaseless care by which Lingard obtained his rare mastery of his subject — ^disdaining nothing, taking nothing for granted, setting the most various authorities side by side: in a word, spending himself in a passionate pursuit of historical accuracy. To a scholar like this, with a mind saturated with truthful knowledge, it must have been particularly galling to find his good faith called in question, in the denuncia- tions of his most learned critic. Dr. Allen, supported by evidence which he well knew to be tainted and unreliable. Lesser critics he endured with his wonted imperturbable good humour. " Since my return," he wrote to Dr. Gradwell, on Easter Eve, 1826: " My history has been noticed in two reviews, the Quar- terly in an article entitled ' The Reformation,' by Mill- * Sir John Harington to Sir Amyas Paulet. {Nugae Antiquae, Vol. I, PP- 367-9-) 214 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD man, and in Blackwood's last number in an article headed ' Dr. Lingard.' The first charges me with being an artful writer, but fixes on no particular passage as a proof of falsehood or misrepresentation: the second is nothing but rant about minds debased by superstition, etc., and an exhortation to protestants to be on their guard, for the crisis is approaching, and British papists maintain a weekly correspondence with the Pope. I have reason to be content with each, for both show that they would bite if they could." Lingard had bought a picture in Rome for his chapel, and the above letter gives the news of its safe arrival, and his high delight at now having " as good an altar-piece as lany in England." The questionable benefit of replying to adverse writers is considered by Lingard in a letter to Dr. Poynter (5th July, 1826), telling him of Charles Butler's reply to Southey's VindicicB EcclesicB Angli- cancB, which was the fifteenth publication on the sub- ject since that writer had thrown down the glove in his Book of the Church, and Butler had taken it up by writing his Book of the Catholic Church: " The great difficulty with such answers is to get them into the hands of protestants. . . . For my own part I begin to be of opinion that it will prove the most service- able for us to be silent. Every book we write in our defence, while it is hardly seen by twenty protestants, provokes a number of replies, replete with misrepresenta- tion and calumny, which by the aid of reviews and news- papers are circulated throughout the kingdom. The good we do cannot be commensurate with the evil to which that good gives occasion." These words were hardly written when Lingard re- ceived the great provocation of his life, which, in his publisher's opinion as well as his own, imperatively DR. ALLEN'S "SAVAGE ATTACK" 215 demanded a public and open vindication under his own name — Dr. Allen's savage attack in the Edinburgh Review (Vol. XLIV, p. 94) on his account of the mas- sacre of St. Bartholomew. In a letter to the British Press of 15th October, 1825 (Vol. IV, p. 450), Lin- gar d, under the title " Investigator," had defended the authenticity of a MS. in the King's Library in Paris, concerning the captivity of Richard II, which he had quoted in his History, and -wYach. Dr. Allen had declared to be " manifestly a collection of tales and hearsays embellished by the imagination of the author," and quite unworthy of credence. " Investigator " says that having been lately in Paris, and unwilling to rely solely on his own judgment, he had consulted the literary expert, M. Buchon, who, after a careful perusal of the docu- ment had pronounced emphatically in its favour. " The writer of the article in the ' Edinburgh Review ' is now in Paris with Lord Holland" continues " Investi- gator," and h'e invites him to refer to the document itself, and then to pronounce — if he honestly can — that it is a " collection of tales and hearsays." Here Lin- gard ended, but unfortunately the letter did not appear strong enough to Mr. Mawman, and without Lingard's knowledge a passage was added at the end, written, it is supposed, by Mr. Sedgwick, Commissioner of the Board of Stamps, reflecting sharply upon Allen, as turning over " with grave formality the worst rubbish of the Saxon records," etc., "a course of proceeding so ridiculous as to save it from any graver feeling than that of contempt." Dr. Allen was in Paris, and easily discovered from M. Buchon that the only person who had consulted him with reference to the MS. in question had been Dr. Lingard; and Allen naturally attributed the whole of " Investigator's " letter to him. Considerably nettled, he 2i6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD set to work upon an attack on Lingard's account of the massacre of St. Bartholomew " with such an array of authorities and citations " as to cause the latter a momentary alarm, as he wrote to Mr. Mawman ( ist August, 1826) which gradually subsided, "when I saw him at the conclusion toiling and writhing under the attempt to reconcile his theory with an indisputed fact; and it existed no longer when I. had compared my own statements with the critique." Charles Butler was among the first to write to Lin- gar d on the subject of Dr. Allen's attack, and he gave him the interesting news that through the Wilkes's Allen had become intimate with the French Huguenots, who had supplied him with all his information respect- ing the massacre.* " I was surprised," he writes, " by the various and curious information displayed by Dr. Allen; but it now appears how he obtained it. If your reply should not be very long, it seems to me deserving of consideration whether it would not be for Mr. Mawman's interest to have it translated into French. I am very anxious to see it; but you should not hurry it." Writing from " Brighthelmstone," a month later (27th October), Butler relates how the first person he had met " in this very wholesome and gay place " had been Dr. Allen: " He mentioned, of his own accord, his critique in the Edinburgh Review, and said he had been provoked into it by a Letter in one of the newspapers which he knew to be yours. ... I recollect the letter; if it be not yours, I think you should disavow it." Lingard hastened to explain the matter, and Butler, in his next letter informs him that he has taken care * Probably members of the family of John Wilkes (i 727-1797), the "Friend of Liberty." A VINDICATION 217 to inform Dr. Allen of the true facts of the case. A vindication against the aspersions publicly cast upon him by Allen was none the less necessary, and Lingard was busily engaged in preparing it. On the 8th October he wrote to Dr. Kirk that the greater part hkd already gone to the press, and that he flattered himself Dr. Allen would repent the attack he had made upon him, and of which many of Allen's friends were speak- ing in terms of reprobation: " They, though they suppose him correct in his view of the Parisian massacre, think that he has used me un- generously and unfairly, in taking a note on a subject not properly English as a specimen of the whole work. I shall, however, prove, if I am not much deceived, that I have represented the matter in its true light, and that he has been guilty of artifice and misrepresentation. Be not, however, afraid that I shall lose my temper. I shall do the business genteely, but, I hope, effectually." The same letter gives the information that his His- tory is being translated into Italian by Gregori, who had translated Cobbett, that Roujoux's French trans- lation is published, and that by an Arrete Special of the University of Paris, a copy was to be placed in every college library, and copies given as prizes to the students in philosophy and rhetoric. In order to make his Vindication unanswerable, Lingard again traversed all the ground he had pre- viously searched, as his letters to and from experts in Paris, Gradwell, Tierney, and others bear witness. Not only did he satisfy himself as to the correctness of his own conclusions, but he had the triumph of converting Tierney on the important point of the letter sent after the massacre, with orders to put to death the Huguenots in every part of the country, as related by Papire Masson in his life of Charles IX written in 1575. 2i8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " What authority ought he to have?" asks Lingard in a letter to Tierney, 26th September, 1826: " I wish to say that he has none: that he brings no proof; that he merely writes down the common report of the day. ... I am much inclined to deny the existence of any such letters. My argument is this: We do not find that a single governor of provinces put to death any Huguenots at that time; we do not find that out of all the cities and towns in the kingdom more than seven were disgraced by massacres at that time, and these were places where the Huguenots had furiously massacred the Catholics. Is it possible to believe that if the king had ordered massacres everywhere, he would have been obeyed only in these seven instances? My argument must fall if there be any instances of massacres by order of ^governors, or in other towns than the seven, between the 24th 'August and 2nd or 3rd of September." Tierney replied that as Ma^son was the Duke of Anjou's librarian, and that as Brantome, while borrowing from him in almost every other instance, abandons him on the subject of the massacre, he is inclined to reject his authority. But on the subject of the letters to the provinces, Tierney has never been able to agree with Lingard: the testimony, of all the historians is unani- mous on the point, etc. On further investigation, however, Tierney discovered, and hastened to admit to Lingard, that at the instance of Jean de Marvelliers, Bishop of Orleans, Keeper of the Seals, the letters were never sent.* The often-repeated assertion that Pope Gregory XIII had published an allocution, or any other act respecting the massacre, is also disproved by documents sent by Gradwell; and on the 17th October, Lingard wrote to Mr. Mawman that his Vindication was ready. The * The publication of the Nuncio Salviati's private dispatches completely justified Lingard's account of the massacre. A PIRATED EDITION 219 same letter informs him — of what he perhaps already knows — " that that pirate, Galignani of Paris, has re- published an English edition of the History which he sells for £3 3s. od., or 75 frs. The rascal I " When Lingard modestly wrote to his publisher that though he might be able to defend himself against; Dr. Allen's attacks, yet the latter had an overwhelming advantage in the Review ; for " what he writes is read by thousands : what I may reply will not be seen by so many hundreds," he underrated his own literary importance, and the widespread interest with which — in Paris as in England — ^his Vindication was expected. It ran rapidly through five editions, and Allen's reply in the beginning of the following year, was little re- garded and went no further than a first edition. " Per- haps I have not been so severe as you would wish," wrote Lingard in sending the MS. to Mawman, " but I think I hurt his feelings more by treating his abuse with a tone of contempt. It will appear more dig- nified; and he will not have the pleasure of asserting that he has vexed me." In sending a copy of the Vindication to Tierney (26th December), Lingard tells him that three editions are already sold, and that they have quickened the sale of the History. Sir William Hamilton, professor of History in the University of Edinburgh, Mr. Petrie, Keeper of the records in the Tower, and Dr. Kay, Bishop of Bristol, have pronounced him victorious. Before the end of the year Mr. Mawman sent Lin- gard another invitation to travel with him, but he could not accept it. "You have proposed a delightful excursion," he answered [15th December, 1826], but at the same time an impracticable one. " For i" it would take me from home at Christmas, which would astound and scandalize not only my own 220 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD congregation, but all the devotees for miles around. 2° The first visit I pay into Yorkshire must be to Lord Stourton. For eight years I have annually talked of visiting him, and have never done it yet." We have now come to perhaps the most interesting and honourable episode in Lingard's life — his elevation to the purple by Pope Leo XII — an event which has not been without its contradictors, chief of whom was Cardinal Wiseman, and which therefore requires to be fully considered. The Pope who, whenever he had seen Dr. Gradwell, had never failed to speak of Lin- gard in the highest terms and to inquire how soon his History would be finished, held a Consistory in the month of October, 1826, when he made his nuncios at Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, and Moscow, cardinals, be- sides several others reservati in petto, i.e. so appointed by the pontiff, but whose elevation was, for various reasons, to be promulgated at a later date. In his allocution at the Consistory, Leo XII described one of the reserved cardinals as a man of great talents, a most accomplished scholar whose writings, drawm from original sources, ex nativis fontibus, had not only rendered great service to religion, but had delighted and astonished Europe. These particulars, received from Cardinal Zurla, were communicated to Lingard by Dr. Gradwell in a letter of November nth; and he goes on to say : " Some bigots thought it was La Mennais, though the latter has almost surfeited Rome. The report most preva- lent at Rome at present is that the Pope had the historian of England in his eye, and this is considered the most probable, as it is known that the Pope has a very great esteem for him, often speaks of him, and told him last year that he wished he resided in Rome. This was one of the topics at Torlonia's table last Wednesday. Baron THE CARDINALATE 221 'A'ticajani, the pope's nearest relative, was one of the party. They asked me what I thought. I answered that I had no doubt of your deserving the honour; but that such a promotion would be received with less rapture by the historian than by any one of the four nuncios." Far from being received w^ith rapture, the report filled the English historian — who no more wished for a cardinal's hat than for a bishop's mitre — with unfeigned dismay and some incredulity. He immediately wrote to Monsignor Testa, the Pope's chamberlain, who had written the allocution, that if he did not think the report ridiculous, he would find means to inform His Holiness that such an appointment, in the present cir- cumstances, would be very inexpedient. Lingard knew that it would not be altogether easy to obtain the revocation of such an honour. After giving the above details to his publisher, in a letter of the 20th Jan- uary, 1827, he proceeds: " This may, I trust, put a stop to it, if there be any- thing in it. Lord Stourton has suggested (which never occurred to me) that in the event of Catholic Emancipa- tion, government might wish to have a person high in office in Rome. This is, however, very uncertain, and whether such a thing, were it mentioned to me hereafter from authority, would overcome my repugnance, I cannot tell." Lingard reassures himself, and comforts Mawman with the fact of the Pope having inquired how long it would be before the History was finished, which showed " that he was aware of the impropriety of interfering with my literary engagements." Mr. Mawman had evidently expressed his fear that the report would injure the sale of the book, for at the beginning of the above letter Lingard says he 222 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD does not see that it would interfere with the sale, and' he goes on: " If I consult nay own inclination I shall never expatriate myself, to live amid the fuss and ceremony and restraint of the Roman cardinals." Lingard's uneasiness lasted for two years, as we find in an amusing letter to the Rev. John Bradley, at Ushaw, dated 27th January, 1829: " Let me tell you that cardinals are not quakers, but gentlemen. They do not wear broad brims but cocked hats . . . what is more strange a gold band surrounds the hat. As to the tale of my being made cardinal . . . for six months no one doubted that I was the man: then the report began to lose ground: and, though no other person has been substituted in my place in the general opinion, my name now is seldom mentioned. Most, but not all the cardinals then named in petto have been dis- closed; so far as that goes the result is still uncertain. . . . Whatever I might have done twenty years ago, I should now feel extremely unwilling to go to Rome, and there have to undergo all the fuss and parade, and cere- mony of a cardinal's life. I am much more comfortable here, and should most certainly refuse as far as I dared, if it came to pass. I am not altogether without some fear: for his Holiness has repeatedly asked when I shall have completed my work. ... It may be that he waits for that time." Another reason for Lingard's uneasiness lay in the fact that the Pope, as we have seen, had given him a large Jubilee medal in gold, while he had given silver medals ot the same size to Bishop Poynter and other prelates; and Lingard had been assured that the gold medals were only given to sovereign princes and car- dinals. He had been misinformed, or at least no record oT the custom remains in Rome, and, according to the officials of the papal court, no trace can be found of DEATH OF LEO XII 223 any such restrictions. The medals were given by the popes to those whom thiey specially desired to honour, without reference to birth or ecclesiastical rank, and carried with them no promisie of the cardinalate. But the assertion had been made to Lingard on sufficient authority to be credited by him, as his letters testify, to the end of his life. Before the last volume of the History was printed Leo XII had died, carrying with him the secret of the cardinal reserved in petto. Dr. Gradwell had said that " some bigots " had thought of La Mennais, and the high authority of Cardinal Wiseman endorsed th!at opinion thirty-two years later in Ms Recollections of the Last Four Popes, asserting positively that not Lingard but La Mennais " was then and ever afterwards " considered to have been the subject of the Pope's reservation. The Car- dinal equally positively r^epudiates as " absolutely in- consistent with Lingard's delicatie abhorrence of praise from a child " the fact — which we have the latter 's own letters to prove — ^that " at once taking to himself the description of the reserved cardinal," he should have taken steps to prevent the matter going further. Cardinal Wiseman's memory plays him false when he attributes to Dr. Gradwell, " the old and affectionate friend of Dr. Lingard," the origin of the report, sup- posing him to have been present at the Consistory, and well remembering " the excitement and delight " with which, on coming home, he had declared " as from his own conjecture " that the " characteristics assigned were applicable to no one else." As we know, it was Cardinal Zurla who informed Gradwell of the terms of the allocution, and we have given the latter 's account of the dinner at Prince Torlonia's, and the questions put to him by the gentlemen there ; clearly proving that 224 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD it was not merely " in the immediate circle of the Eng- lish College that this interpretation was assented to," as Wiseman relates. It is to be regretted that a long letter of Gradwell's on the subject, written in February, 1827, in reply to Lingard's inquiries, sh'ould have lieen lost in transit. Writing in the following May, Gradwell laments its loss, and says: " For the public good and your own comfort I do not wish' you to be a cardinal. The rumour of your promotion is still afloat, but not so much credited as it was." * At the same time, he men- tions that the Pope has spoken to him of his intention to have Gregori's Italian translation of the History printed in the Vatican, and that Battaglia of Venice is trying to defeat this plan. " They are translating your History into German," he continues. " I have been desired from a respectable quarter, to furnish the German translator with some account of the Author and his writings." These facts, and that the History had been pub- lished in America and translated into French, must have been perfectly well known to Dr. Wiseman, who was vice-rector of the English College at the time ; so it is somewhat startling to find him forgetting them to the extent of giving as a reason why Lingard could not have been the reserved cardinal, that his works " were not well known abroad." f If we turn to consider the case of the abh€ de la Mennais, it is equally strange to find Cardinal Wise- * The secret of cardinalates in feito was really locked in the papal breast. One Roman ecclesiastic felt so sure that he was one of the eleven reserved car- dinals that he purchased his robes, upon which the Pope remarked: " Puo vendere la porpora, giacche le tignole vi ci si metteranno forse dentro " — he may sell the purple lest the moth should get into it. ( CEum-es Posthumes de F. La Mennais, Correspondances, XLVII.) t Recollections of the Last Four Popes, pp. 328-40. F. DE LA MENNAIS 225 man's unhesitating assertions regarding him.* It is quite true that his two magnificent works — La Doctrine de VEgUse sur P Institution des Eveques, published in 1 81 5, and the Essai sur V Indifference en Matiere de Religion (1820-18 24) — answered in almost every, re- spect, save that of being drawn from original sources, to Leo XII's description; but if we refer to La Men- nais' biography we shall find insuperable objections to such a promotion. Immediately after the publication of the last volume of the Essai, La Mennais replied to his critics in a Defense de I'Essai, which brought him into such direct antagonism, by its imcompromising ultramontanism, with the government and the French' clergy that in June, 1824, he went to Rome to defend himself. At his first audience the Pope received him benevolently, but with a cold reserve which almost determined him to leave Rome immediately. The French ambassador, the Duke of Laval-Mont- morency, was absent from Rome, and his charge d'affaires, the Chevalier Artaud, wrote to M. de Vill^le, Charles X's first minister (loth August, 1824), report- ing a confidential conversation with Cardinal Somaglia : "As for M. de La Mennais, people iwe^re afraid he twould see too much of the Pope. Eh bien, the first time he spoke to him so tittle, that La Mennais was discontented and wished to go away." In his next despatch M. Artaud mentions that if La Mennais is in want of money, he can be " provided with a canonry, or at- tached to some library, like Monsignor Mai." In subsequent audiences Leo XII treated the Breton writer with affectionate confidence, and kept him so long that the court prelates were puzzled and intrigued, * F. de La Mennais (1782-1854). Ordained priest in 1815 ; his works in defence of the Church caused Leo XII to call him the " Last Father of the Church." His work, Paroles d'un Croyant, published in 1834, was condemned by Pope Gregory XVI, and La Mennais left the Church of Rome. 226 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD — the more so that nothing, transpired as to the subjects treated in these long interviews. The impression made upon the Pope by the ardent champion of the Church, with his passionate eloquence, his novel and hardy views, and natiiral inclination towards absolutism, was summed up by Cardinal Somaglia to M. Artaud: " What the Pope thinks of him is, that he is an esal- tato." And in his next despatch to Paris M. Artaud writes (13th September, 1824): "The Pope told Cardinal Turiozi, on the departure of M. de la Men- nais : ' That Frenchman is a distinguished man ; he is a writer ; he has talent and instruction ; I think he is of good faith; but he is one of those lovers of perfection who, if he were given his will, would upset the universe — bouleversrait le monde.' " iWe are inclined to reject as fabulous the letter — with' signature and date — quoted by that voluminous and unreliable writer, M. Cr^tineau-Joly, in his Eglise Rotnaine et la Revolution, from Cardinal Bernetti to the Duke of Laval-Montmorency. Gr6tineau-Joly had been secretary to Cardinal Bernetti, who, on his death in 1852, had left him his papers.* The letter, dated 30th August, 1824, gives an account of an audience in which Leo XII had declared to Bernetti, that La Men- nais' expression had struck him with horror, as that of a heresiarch, his face carrying its own condemnation. " His friends in France and Italy would like him to have a cardinal's hat," concluded the pontiff. " A man so possessed with pride would make the Holy See rue any such favour." La Mennais' biographers accuse Cr6tineau-Joly — who wrote after La Mennais' death — of having invented this letter de toutes pieces; and, as the original appears to * J. Cr^tineau-Joly (1803-1875). He was a poet, a journalist, and a political historian. TRIAL OF LA MENNAIS 227 be no longer extant, there are no means of judging how far that writer's known proclivities, led him to alter and improve it in transcription: adtnitting as probable that Bernetti did write to the ambassador on the given date.* But it is clear from the reports of the French charge d'affaires that Leo XII looked upon La Mennais as an esaltato, and as a man who would upset the universe — and cardinals' hats are not bestowed on such. Another, perhaps even greater, proof remains of the impossibility, of any such elevation in the case of La Mennais. On his return to Paris he published, in 1825, his Religion et ses Rapports avec VOrdre Politique et Civile, a work which so offended the French Court and hierarchy, that the ministers of Charles X reluctantly determined to prosecute the brilliant and audacious writer ; and on the 20th April, 1826, La Mennais was convicted in the Tribunal Correctionnel, of an attack upon the laws of the state — atteinte poriee aux Ids de Vetat — and con- demned to pay a fine of thirty francs; the book being suppressed by order of the court. Although Leo XII instructed his nuncio in Paris to intercede on behalf of the culprit, it is not within the bounds of possibility that four months afterwards, he should have determined upon a deliberate insult to the legitimate monarchy of France, a blow at the house of Bourbon — already beginning to totter to its fall — and a breach of all the rules of procedure with a friendly power, by bestowing the highest dignity in his gift, upon a man who had been convicted of an attack upon the laws of his country. While La Mennais was in Rome, in 1824, a report appeared in the Constitutionnel newspaper that he was to be made a cardinal, and was immediately contra- * The fact that Leo XII accepted and hung up in his room a por- trait of La Mennais, offered to him by Padre Ventura, is generally quoted as evidence of the falsity of Cretineau-Joly's statement. 228 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD dieted in the press (i ith September, 1824). In 1826 no such rumours appeared, and it is interesting to find that the earlier notices of La Mennais, while ac- cepting the authenticity of the fact, rely entirely upon Cardinal Wiseman's statement, made more than thirty years after date.* M. E. Spiiller, whose life of La Mennais was written after the French minister of Foreign Affairs had laid open the letters and dispatches of the period between 1 8 14 and 1830, including those of Chevalier Artaud, naturally gives up the statement as incredible. If, therefore, it be clear that Leo XII had no thought of La Mennais as his literary cardinal, Lingard remains alone in the field, no third name having ever been suggested. When Leo XII's death, in 1829, freed hiim from the apprehension of expatriation, Lingard retained only a pxure and unmingled satisfaction, a sense of gratitude towards the sovereign pontiff who had so magnificently recognized his services and his worth. This feeling remained with him all the days of his life, finding expression from time to time in his letters. Writing to John Walker, of Scarborough, 14th September, 1840, who had announced that he was the possessor of a wax candle of Pope Leo XII's, be says: " There is in that candle something that calls for his veneration: but that he is too blind to perceive. It * A vague rumour is mentioned in a letter from a young lady, Countess Louise de Senfift, to La Mennais, dated Turin, 15th November, 1826, as to the possibility of " a certain cardinalship " being destined for him; but La Mennais himself seems to have attached no importance to any such rumours. On the appearance of Cardinal Wiseman's Last Four Popes, Tierney, in a hot and rather intemperate letter to the Rambler, dated 1st May, 1858, pointed out the errors in his statements regarding Lingard. The cardinal replied in . — / /iiC^ Z y'xs-^ *-^ ^>rj-7-»~fcy .^fsjyf/X- /*- - ^^vc-'^I^Z- ^^^-^ ^^^ /U. //7'^ ..0-_ /X«^^ ^^_^ .A.^/ ^ ^ ^..^^ ^ ^^.-^ •— '■x.''^ ^M-«^ . / ^ %--».i^^ ->a--^ ^- 'er^ ^' '^.«- « y^"^^^^"-"^. 2^ M^ua^ ^*w- yi***— -^**v^ INVITATION TO OSCOTT 293 I have returned thanks, but that is all. Do they wish me to play second fiddle to Dr. Wiseman?" Walker appears to have suggested the possible ad- vantages of such a change, for Lingard's next letter bids him not to suppose that he could be better any- where else than at Hornby: " You know the man in the gutter: Voleva star meglio ; sto qui. Here are some inconveniences, shall I not meet with greater if I change? The inconveniences may be reduced to solitude in winter, especially the winter even- ings. My neighbours drop in succession into the grave, and there are scarcely any left who can come to sit with me on a winter evening, or whom I can visit then. Well, if I were to go elsewhere, should I be better? Perhaps be pestered with visitants whom I could not wish to see. At all events here I am lord and master, and never will I go to any place where I may be under another. Here I do as I please : here everything, every place is endeared to me after thirty years' habitation. Why should I leave them as long as I can do the duty? I thank you for your kind feelings towards me: but stay here I will." The matter appears to have been dropped, and w^e hear of no further efforts to persuade the sage of Hornby to remove to Oscott. Among the neighbours whose friendship he cher- ished, his letters to Dr. Shepherd's adopted daughter, Miss Joyce, show how high a place that erudite young lady held in Dr. Lingard's regard and esteem. They are delightful letters, showing the old-world courtesy, the playful humour of the man. He sometimes ad- dressed her as " Mam'selle La Joyeuse," persisting that Joyce must originally have been Joyeuse, and he hopes that when she changes her name, joyeuse she may still remain. But his more usual style of address to her was Eccellenza — your excellency. Salviati's and 294 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Rosetti's despatches — ^the discovery by Sir F. Palgrave of certain papers laid before the Antiquarian Society — a comparison of the great historian's and the young lady's opinions regarding Anne Boleyn and young Percy, may be mentioned to show how interesting were the subjects of the correspondence. " If Palgrave's papers throw any light on Anne Boleyn 's case, they will be curious indeed," he writes, 5th January, 1843; he continues: " I have a notion of my own with respect to her, which I have never made public. That she was murdered, as you say, I believe. I am glad that Percy, who sought to marry her, was not present at her trial as you say in yours." But his next letter begs Miss Joyce not to think him rude if he disputes her accu- racy; as he reads the papers, Percy was present at the Queen's trial, and concurred with the others in finding a verdict of guilty. During the next trial — of Lord Rochford — ^he was suddenly taken ill, and left the court. Naturally, Miss Joyce insisted upon knowing Lin- gard's secret " notion " respecting Anne, and he re- plied that it was a suspicion not a secret; he had meant to say that he had not published it because it was but a suspicion, and he could not prove it. It referred to Anne's great trouble about something — well known to Francis of France — ^^for a mionth or two before her disgrace; and Lingard's belief that it referred to her old love affairs in France, which Henry's jealous mind at last convinced him were true. " He sacrificed her because he believed she had misconducted herself before her marriage, as he did afterwards that very little girl, parvissima puella, Catharine Howard." Sometimes Lingard tells Miss Joyce anecdotes,— writ- ing how in 1 814, at the meeting of the sovereigns in London, Cardinal Consalvi, who represented the Pope, LETTERS TO MISS JOYCE 295 was stepping from his door to his carriage in black silk with scarlet stockings, when a man in the street cried, "Who the is that?" "Oh," replied an- other, "that's the chaplain of the Cossacks." And he tells her further that Sir Thomas Lawrence pro- nounced Consalvi's head " the finest that God had ever made." Lingard sent her at another time "two curiosities for your ladyship to look at, — ^one as a specimen of a difficult French MS., — the other, the silk from St. Cuthbert's coffin, must be 1200 years old."* In return Miss Joyce sent her old friend an un- published life of Sheridan, which he returns with ex- pressions of delight at the book: " I thought that I knew a great deal of Sheridan, but never suspected that he was so reckless, so very vain and negligent as this unpublished volume shows him to have been. This example offers a useful lesson to all young men just entering into life." Miss Joyce had inquired after his health, and he replies that he has been pretty well since his last letter " and of course care not a fig for the past. So pain, and sorrow, and every evil passes away: and yet when they are present one cannot persuade oneself to think that they are not worth notice." And he concludes prettily: "Supposing therefore that Dr. Shepherd and yourself are feeble mortals, like myself, I will pray that such evils may not invade your mansion at Gat- acre till years and years are past." One of the most charming of the letters shows us Lingard's great love of animals. Miss Joyce had offered him two beautiful Antwerp pigeons, and he * Two fragments of silk taken from St. Cuthbert's coffin in 1827 were presented to Dr. Lingard in 1841 by Dr. Gilly, one of the Durham Cathedral clergy who had been present at the opening of the coffin. One was red silk with a black glory cross, the other a drab silk. 296 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD had written that he would not put her to the sacrifice of parting with them, nor would he distress himself with the danger of attachment to them: " You will wonder what I mean. It is this, that I form such an attachment to these poor dumb things, that I am always plaguing myself with apprehensions that when I drop, they may fall into the hands of those who will use them cruelly. On that account I have had no dog since the death of Etna, my large Sicilian poodle, no cat since my last died two years ago, no bird, etc. etc., and pre- cautions are taken to secure a speedy death to my old pony as soon as I go myself. Excuse all this nonsense, I write to explain truly why I do not accept, what I should otherwise rejoice to accept, your kind present. Now laugh at me. About a year ago my servant brought me an egg of a guinea-fowl, on which a hen had sitten [sic]. It was chipped. I broke it. The little chick was alive. I nursed it in cotton[wool] by the fire, and brought it up till it was two months old, and as large as any pigeon. It knew me as its protector, would fly in at my window, perch and go to sleep on my knee, walk out by my side, and attend on me like a dog. Many were surprised and amused by its familiar and domestic habits. One morning it was with me till breakfast, and amusing itself under my window when I sat down. On rising up it was gone, and I have never seen it since. The Murrays, my neighbours [at Hornby Hall], sent their servants in search; we all did our best, but it has never been found; and the conclusion was, that it had been carried off by a large hawk, that had frequently been seen on one of my trees. Well, I was such a fool that I was quite distressed for the fate of the poor thing, and the moment I read of the pigeons in your letter, I reverted to the fate of my loved chick. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, and admire his wisdom in resolving not to expose himself to a repetition of them," FATHER MATHEW 1297 When the great apostle of temperance, Father Mathew, came to England in 1843, Miss Joyce shared the general enthusiasm aroused by his persuasive and pathetic exhortations, to the point of making a banner for him, and wrote to Dr. Lingard for advice as to its design.* He looked through his books, and con- sulted an Irishwoman from Cork, the chief scene of Father Mathew's labours, in the hope of meeting with his arms or crest, and finally wrote to Miss Joyce telling her to make the banner as she described it. " What can be better? Intoxicate the good man with flattery, if you cannot with drink." He then tells a story of a Franciscan ambassador to the French Court in 1642, and how the Secretaire des Ambassadeurs, in conducting him to his carriage, took leave in these words: " Je prie Dieu, mon pere, qu'il vous con- duise bieti en voire pays, et que je ne vous voie jamais encore, si ce ne soit en Paradis, dont il nous fasse jouir tous deux, mais que ce soit Le plus tot pour vous, et le plus tard pour moi, que faire se pourra." " So much for Capuchins," continues Lingard: " But I am delighted with your admiration of Father Mathew, for I believe him to be a good and humble man, who has not suffered his head to be turned by the ap- plause which he has received and has merited." When Lent came roimd in the year 1845, Missi Joyce, in her solicitude for her old friend's health, wrote to beg him " to fast by proxy." He immediately, responded by promising to do his part by taking good * Theobald Mathew (1790-1856). Went to Maynooth in 1807, and soon after joined the Irish Franciscans in Dublin. He signed the pledge of total abstinence on the i8th April, 1838, with the characteristic words, "Here goes, in the name of the Lord. " His disciples soon numbered, it was said, nearly half the adult population of Ireland. When he came to London in 1843 his meetings were successful. Society offered its homage. He met the members of the administration, and was treated with great kindness by Sir Robert Peel. 300 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " Mais elle Itait du monde, ou les plus belles choses Ont souvent le pire destin, Et rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses L'^space d'un matin." She was of earth, where oft the fairest flower Meets with the saddest lot. Rose fared as roses fare — through one short hour She bloomed and then was not, Such were the relaxations of the great historian's arduous life, which was now rapidly becoming one of almost continual bodily pain,— the suffering caused by a lengthened malady never betraying itself by word or sign, except in answer to the direct inquiries of his. friends — especially of his faithful disciple and corre- spondent, John Walker; and then we invariably find after a brief description of his state, such words as, " But enough of this nonsense I " Meanwhile, the college chapel at Ushaw had become too small for its requirements, and Lingard was con- sulted as to the building of a new one. He sent a donation of £ioo and several letters of advice — which were not heeded — ^but which are very interesting as showing his strong aversion to some of the features of Gothic architecture, the revival of which— with Pugin as its great interpreter — was being made manifest throughout the length and breadth of the land. Lin- gard's advice was against building a new chapel, the addition of a Gothic chapel to the factory-like old quadrangle would not be in keeping; he would lengthen the present one about 20 feet, and make it as complete a thing as any in the kingdom. With a colonnade on each side about 12 feet from the wall, " It would represent some of the basilicas in Rome, or the Exchange news-room in Liverpool. The addi- ARCHITECTURAL NOTIONS 301 tion would give room for the choir, and the expense would be one-third. There for my architectural no- tions," he wrote to John Walker. Lingard's architectural notions, it need hardly be said, were considered too modest and old-fashioned. Mr. Pugin was invited to make designs, which filled him with dismay when they were sent by Dr. New- sham for his approval. The external appearance rather disappointed him; he knew not why the door was so small " imless it be that Pugin thinks it a duty to copy defects as well as excellencies: " With respect to the inside, it was dusk when I opened the lithographs, and I could not see distinctly. The organ on the screen appeared so like one of my fowls clapping his wings, that I unconsciously exclaimed, ' What have we here? The devil crowing over the choir?' It is, in my opinion, most frightful — and the four candles most ridicu- lous — and the rood and images above most unsightly. Do, I beg of you, sweep all away. Why must we put up roods, when for two hundred years they have been swept away in every country in Europe?" In his next letter (30th May, 1844) he fiu-ther develops his objections : Why are the people in the ante-chapel not to have a full sight of the altar? : " It was so originally when the altar was placed be- tween the clergy and the people. I suspect that it was only after the monks had contrived for their own comfort choirs between the altar and the people, that roods were introduced, and those frightful figures of the crucifixion stuck up over the entrance to the choir; that as the people were shut out from the sacrifice, they might at least have some object to entertain their thoughts with while it was performed. . . . Do, I implore you, think well before you admit of such an incongruity." 302 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Though the general opinion was against him, Lin- gard later found one great authority who agreed with him, in the belief that screens were in a measure re- sponsible for the decay of religion. Writing to Walker (i8th August, 1849), he relates a conversation, after the opening of some church, between Dr. Wiseman and the celebrated antiquary, Pfere Martin, the Jesuit. Wiseman asked him what he thought about screens: " He answered that they were unknown in the ancient church before the Xllth century — that there is not one existing now that was not built after 1330: and that they contributed more than anything else to the spread of the reformation, by preventing the people from being cor- porally present at the service." Feeling so strongly on this subject, Lingard's atti- tude towards the genius of Pugin was by no means one of unalloyed admiration.* He regrets to bear that he is to be the architect of the new chmrch at Newcastle, because be will certainly put up a rood-screen. " Do not," be urges upon John Walker, with regard to a liew church to be built in York, " adopt all the whims of Pugin. Why because, when windows were not glazed, it was necessary to have curtains on each side the altar, have them now? Why because, when men got up at midnight to say matins in the depth of winter, they therefore enclosed themselves as snugly as they could in the choir, have such a choir now walled round, and shut out by a screen from the public view?" * Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852). He was received into the Church of Rome in 1834, and from that moment became the architect of that " second spring " which was beginning to blossom all over England. In 1837 young Pugin, at the age of twenty-five, wrote that he was "full of business" with building five churches near Birmingham and several in Ireland. No short life of forty years can ever have produced a greater number of fine architectural works than did his. The Pugin travelling studentship, controlled by the r -lyaX Institute of British Architects, was established as a memorial of him. PUGIN'S CHAPEL AT USHAW 303 " Let our churches be adapted to our wants," is his constant cry, " as those of ancient times were to the wants of those who built them. At all events have the church built so that all who attend may see the service." When, in the spring of 1845, Pugin's fine chapel at Ushaw was finished. Dr. Lingard was pressingly and affectionately invited to attend the opening cere- mony ; but he was reluctantly obliged to decline on the score of ill-health. He could not, as he wrote to Dr. Newsham, on the 7th April, travel twenty miles without great suffering: " Yet, strange to say,, I cherish a notion that, if I live two or three years longer, and the projected railways are executed, I shall be able by a number of small journeys to get as far as Ushaw. It would be to me the greatest gratification which I can at present imagine." Lingard was to live more than six years longer, but he was never able to accomplish the journey. CHAPTER XIV IN view of the passionate and dangerous outbreak of angry feeling, which was to shake the country a few years later against the " papal aggression " of 1850 — when "no popery" was to be scrawled, with the Pope hanging from a gibbet, on many a hoarding, and garden-paling in England — it is inter- esting to note Lingard's attitude towards the new order of things in his Church. He was the chief, the most distinguished, as well as one of the oldest of the men who could recall the days of pre-emancipation, and such events as the trial of Bishop Talbot on the capital charge of saying Mass in England; and theirs was the attitude of cautious tentativeness in emerging into free- dom, inseparable from a race with centuries of bondage behind it. In juxtaposition to these men was the new party, finely represented by Dr. Wiseman, ultramontane in politics, reared and educated abroad^ and imbued with' foreign habits and notions, which he desired should he established in England as speedily and universally as possible. And now had arisen the party of con- verts, the ex-Tractarians and men of Oxford and Cam- bridge, born and bred in freedom, and apparently in- capable of comprehending that there could be anything rash or dangerous, in practising their new religion as openly as they had practised their Anglicanism; to them the caution and slowness of the old Catholic clergy, was at times a subject of impatience not un- tinged with scorn. 304 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 305 Both the latter parties appear to have considered the general temper of the country as tending towards a return to the Catholic Church. Here Lingard differed. His experienced wisdom better understood the mass of his countrymen, their prejudices and distrust ; and his every thought and effort were bent on averting the dangers which his surer insight foresaw. It is difficult not to believe that, had his views prevailed, the res- toration of the hierarchy would have taken place as quietly, as unobtrusively and unaggressively, as did the far more radical measure of removing England from the jurisdiction of Propaganda, effected by Pius X in 1908. Lingard foretold that Dr. Pusey would never enter the Church; and, after quoting in a letter to Dr. Tate (2nd September, 1843) the assertion of a Puseyite that he was ready to subscribe to all the articles defined by the Council of Trent, but that he looked on the Church of England as possessing Apostolic Succession, and did not feel justified in leaving her, Lingard re- marks, "That is what I have always said: they will not give up their orders to be reordained, and conse- quently will not join us." Of some of those who, had given up their orders and been reordained, he wrote three years later to Walker of the " confidence and triumph " in which the clergy from Oxford then at Oscott talked, — as if they were " all old women or lunatics," — of the coming time when the old churches would resound with the chants of the Roman Breviary. While Dr. Wiseman, in Lingard's opinion, did not very well understand how to deal with and cultivate the goodwill of his own clergy, his attitude towards the " Oxfordians " did not altogether commend itself to him. " I think with you," he wrote to Walker, in an undated letter, " respecting Dr. Wiseman and the Oxfordians." 3o6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " I am not sure that he is sufSciently acquainted with the habits, opinions, prejudices of Protestant clergymen to form a proper judgment. However, you see that he has at last one convert. You will have seen that in the Tablet; I suppose the Rev. Mr. Sibthorpe there men- tioned, is the same who a few years ago built a church in the Isle of Wight with altar, crucifix, candles, etc., and officiated in it himself.* May his example draw others." Again he wrote: " I do not believe that Dr. Wise- man means by unity the same thing as his Protestant friends. He means an unity of submission, they of equality. I do not conceive that they will give up their English service or anything else." Walker himself did not escape Lingard's warnings, who believed that some of the old Cathblic priests were rashly attempting innovations which would lead them into trouble. " Qaem Deus vult perdere prius demen- tat," he wrote in May, 1841 : "Is it possible that you, Yorkshire clergy, should propose to revive the antiquated practice of sprinkling the congregation with holy water? Does not each at his entrance take it for himself? What need, then, of a second lustration? . . . When the custom was introduced, I know not; but certainly it is unnecessary, and not at all adapted to this country. Am I to understand the carrying of the cross or the crucifix to apply to the processions of the guilds? I * Richard Waldo Sibthorpe (1792-1879), youngest son of Colonel Hampton Sibthorpe, M. P. for Lincoln. At the age of nineteen he went ftom Magdalen College, Oxford, to Wolverhampton, where he spent two days with Dr. Milner with the intention of becoming a Catholic. He was brought back under police surveillance and a Chancery Order by his elder brother, and received Anglican Orders in 1815. From 1830 to r84l he was incumbent of St. James's Church, Ryde, Isle of Wight. He was received into the Catholic Church by Dr. Wiseman and ordained priest in 1842. Mentally disquieted, he returned to the Anglican Church in 1845, and was readmitted to exercise the functions of the ministry in 1857, returning again to the CathoHc Church in 1865. By his special request the English service was said over his grave in Lincoln Cemetery. NON OMNIA EXPEDIUNT 307 cannot believe that any human being could think of doing either in England. Why I what would it be, but to ex- pose both to profanation and blasphemy? Would it not excite rows? and cause the police to carry the bearers and perhaps the priests before the magistrates? Is it not making religion ridiculous in the eyes of Protestants? We wish to catholicise England, and the wise men among us do it by means which must necessarily have a contrary effect. Let us endeavour to make our religion appear venerable and heavenly to those around us. Omnia mihi licent, sed non omnia expediunt." The last thought in the above letter is emphasized in the draft of a letter to Dr. Wiseman, among Lin- gard's papers, with' regard to certain practices and public devotions then coming into vogue, — such as say- ing the litany of Loreto before Mass on Sundays; — they w:ere not at all in harmony with the taste of the age, and should be used with caution in England. "If we mean to bring Protestants to the Church, we must imitate the ancient fathers, by convincing them of the great truths of religion; when that is done, if they join us, they will soon comply with our practices.'" " You talk as you should," h,e wrote to John Walker, " about doctrines being in the Church and of the Church. Most of th,em are, in reality, practices, not doctrines; as the honor of relics, invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, etc. Now these practices were universal in the Church, therefore, the doctrine of the Church with respect to them was that they were laud- able and lawful." The thought was ever in his mind: " I fear that Dr. Wiseman will to,ve few Puseyites to turn into monks," he wrote to Walker (20th June, 1842): " To make any number of converts, we should give milk to the babes, be content with essentials, and not mind 3o8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD anything else; do as the first teachers did, who baptised all who believed in the Apostles' Creed, without requir- ing anything more, being convinced that once admitted they would practice as other Christians do." Nevertheless, les petites devotions continued to flourish^ notwithstanding the old man's warnings. Mrs. Maxwell, a daughter of Lord Stourton, having play- fully accused him of h,eresy, Lingard replied: "A Stourton to condemn me! Well, I must submit.— " I suppose that she has heard that I object to les petites devotions. . . . An eminent barrister once told me that he thought religion a good thing for females, because it broke the monotony of domestic life, and afforded them a pretext for dressing and driving to church, and shewing off themselves, and their children, etc. Now I do not say the same of les petites devotions. I hold them to be really good things, because they afford in these luxurious times to ladies an opportunity of spend- ing their time in prayer, instead of spending it in the dolce far niente. But decidedly they give an air of novelty to Catholicism. They were unknown to its first professors." A little later, after hearing; that Dr. Wiseman had been "preaching, up some new-fangled devotion," there is a note almost of bewilderment in one of his letters to John Walker: " In truth I begin to dispute all my former convic- tions, and to believe that I ought not to have the least reliance on my own judgment. Here is he preaching in favour of a new petite devotion, you restoring the anti- quated custom of the aspersion of holy water, others setting up processions with the cross or the crucifix, all of them practices in themselves certainly unnecessary, in their consequences, as far as I can see, calculated to con- firm the prejudices of well-educated protestants, and pre- vent them from considering the essentials of our holy " NEW-FANGLED DEVOTIONS " 309 religion: and yet all advocated by men whose judgment I respect, and of whose zeal and sincerity I can have no doubt. What, then, am I to think of myself, to whom what they judge at least useful, appears pernicious? . . , The best thing I can do is to keep myself to myself, and leave others to follow their own judgments without any interference of mine," Lingard could remember when Mr. Joseph Bering- ton raised a fear among his colleagues that he would bring persecution upon them, by substituting a black coat for the brown usually worn by Catholic priests; so we can understand something of his dismay when the adoption of the Roman collar was first talked of, with distinctive black habiliments. His attitude was one of rebellion. " If I am not allowed to wear my white cravat," he wrote to John Walker, " I will, as a Douation, start the Douai collar," and he expressed the hope that they would " let the old man alone as to his throat, and not suffocate him vidth a Roman collar." On another occasion, after some comical verses addressed to the same correspondent, he exclaims: " Alas, alas, the days of fun are over, and therefore, to be serious, accept Dr. Wiseman's invitation. You may learn something new, at least how to wear purple stockings and silver buckles. Our Bishop has not adopted that costume yet; but yesterday he sported for the first time in his life a frock-coat. I did not notice whether he had exchanged his cloth leggings for trousers; but I suppose not, otherwise the alteration would have struck me." The vagaries of some of the convert clergy in the matter of dress, — ^appearing in their cassocks in the street, which w^ere to bring, down upon them the Act of Parliament of 1852, forbidding the practice, — were, we need hardly say, displeasing to Lingard; nor did the bearing of some of the new converts always com- 310 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD mend itself to his old-fashioned notions. We find several allusions to Father Spencer in the Walker correspondence.* " I do not know the Hon. and Rev. Spencer," he wrote in 1839. " From his recent doings with Mr. Philips and the mad baronet, I should fear that he is not a man of very sound judgment. Yet Sir Gregory Lewin, who knew him at Cambridge, tells me that he is." Some years later Father Spencer called upon him at Hornby : " I have had here the Rev. and Hon. Mr. Spencer, begging for the new convent. I never met with so methodistic a looking man. Mr. Fogg, our curate, tells me he was a very pious oddity at the University, and considered it a mortal sin to wear gloves. Here he certainly wore none. His fingers were portentously long, very delicate and very white. After a while he was chatty and agreeable. ... It was worldly policy to send him out. He will collect twice as much as anybody else. I told him that the passionists by coming to England had acquired the auri sacra fames of the country." Meanwhile Lingard was quietly and indefatigably pursuing his lifelong work of presenting a true picture 6i th6 past, in opposition to the numerous writers who laboured on the other side. He therefore began, in 1842, the work of revising his History of t/ie Anglo- Saxon Church, first published in 1806. "It will, however, be long, I fear, before it goes to press," he wrote to Dr. Oliver on the 3rd May, 1842. * The Hon. George Spencer (1799-1864), Ignatius of St. Paul, Passionist, was the youngest son of the second Earl Spencer. He was rector of Brington, and chaplain to Bishop Blomfield. He was received into the Church in 1830, and ordained two years later. From 1839 to 1846 he was at Oscott College, and then joined the order of Passionists. He contributed to the establishment of St, Joseph's Retreat, Highgate, and at the time of his death was superior of the Retreat at Sutton, Lancashire. THE BRITISH CHURCH 311 " The fact is that Soames, in his Bampton lectures and his history of the Anglo-Saxon Church, boasts so much of the testimony of the Anglo-Saxon Homilies in favour of the Established Church, that I am resolved to examine them very narrowly before I publish.* . . . I have rewritten all that concerns the British Church for the sake of the notes to be added. For I find that several Puseyites (from whom, however, I expect little) agree that I have proved the dependence of the Anglo- Saxon Church on that of Rome, but think it impossible to prove that of the British Church. I have therefore of late purchased such books as I think may relate to that subject, lately published, as all the reveries of the late Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Burgess.f the British Saints by Rees,$ etc., and find nothing in them which may not be easily answered." Lingard belonged to the ^Ifric Society, and was anxious, as he wrote to Lord Shrewsbury the follow- ing August, that Mr. Thorpe should go to press with the Homilies. For that reason he laboured to pro- cure him subscribers, but could not prevail upon him "to begin before he has 200." § He sent Thorpe's circular to Walker with " Do get him a subscriber or two if you can," and in a later letter (6th January, 1843) he gives the following brief summary of the additional matter respecting the British Church: "1° There exists no direct evidence that the Pope did or did not exercise authority in the British Church. * Henry Soames (1785-1860), ecclesiastical historian. Appointed Bampton Lecturer in 1830. t Thomas Burgess, D.D. (1756-1837), Bishop of St. David's. He pub- lished more than a hundred works, including his Tracts, essaying to prove the independence of Rome of the old British Church. X Rice Rees (1804-1839), Welsh historical scholar. His Essay on the Welsh Saints was published in 1836. In October, 1838, he was appointed domestic chaplain to Bishop Jenkinson. § Benjamin Thorpe (1782-1870), Anglo-Saxon scholar. The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, with an English version, were published by the yElfric Society between 1843 and 1846. 312 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD 2° There is abundance of indirect proof (a) from the Council of Sardica, at which the British prelates assisted; (b) from the undoubted identity of faith and discipline in the Gallic and British Churches. I then prove that papal authority was admitted in Gaul in the Second Cen- tury from St, Irenseus; in the Third from St. Cyprian; in the Fifth from Prosper of Acquitaine. I laugh at Stil- lingfleet, * whose proof is that the Pope did not ordain metropolitans in Britain and Gaul; maintain that all that was necessary was that he should superintend the affairs of the Church in Gaul and Britain, and interfere when interference is called for. . . . There are other things, but of less consequence." Lingard waited not only for the publication of the Homilies, but for that of a History oi the Anglo- Saxons, by Dr. Lappenberg.t He was anxious to see the work, as he wrote to Mr. Silvertop (30th January, 1844), since Lappenberg was highly spoken of by the German scholars, and had been referred to by anti- catholic writers on religious matters " as proving this or that against us." Mr. Silvertop acted as Lingard's agent for the sale of the copyright to Mr. Dolman, the publisher, obtaining £500 — the agreement bears the date of 1 6th March, 1844 — and in writing to thank him, Lingard remarks that he will be indebted to him for £300, " for had you not put me up to it, I should not have asked more than £200." He had previously written that after the first year the sale would be chiefly confined to Catholics: " And I do not think that we are generally a reading people. Perhaps the cause may be that we do not * Edward Stillingfieet (1635-1699), Bishop of Worcester. He published, in 1685, Origines Britannicae, an historical investigation of the sources of British Church history. t J. M. Lappenberg, For. F.S.A., archivist of the city of Hamburg. His work was translated by B. Thorpe, "with considerable additions by the author and translator." CLAIMS UPON HIS PURSE 313 abound with persons in circumstances to spend much money in buying, or much time in reading books. But I think that in the first year of the sale there will be many purchasers among Protestants. The Puseyite move- ment has created a great avidity among a certain class to read our books; and the subject which I treat is calcu- lated to awaken their curiosity. Many of them purchased my Catechetical Instructions about two years ago. In the small town of Stamford I know that seven copies were bought by Protestant clergymen." For some reason Lingard's devoted friend Walker had advised against Dolman as publisher, for we find in a letter from Lingard, dated 30th December, 1843: " I wish Dolman to get my Anglo-Saxon in spite of you. I will let him have it for £100 less than any one else. Why so?. Because he has had the courage to support Tierney in his edition of Dodd." The money came in usefully to enable Dr. Lingard to meet the claims upon his purse. His bountiful hand was ever open; and we find him writing to his banker, Mr. Coulston, when asking for another draft to send to a poor man: " If I do not make money by some means or other, I shall be ruined by applications from one quarter and another. This is the third this week." The publisher was satisfied with the sale of the work, and the author with its reception by the press, except that portion of it devoted to the anti-Puseyite party. In writing, to Walker (5th January, .1845) that he had laughed at his rhapsody over the book, he adds : " Lord Brougham thinks differently. In his last work he looks upon my history as the most surprising pheno- menon of this age. Why so? because no one could possibly expect that a work so fraught with popish par- tiality and prejudice, could have been published in the 314 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD 19th century. Yet, before his last departure for Cannes, he sent me his compliments, and to enquire after my health." Lingard's playful humour was wont to exercise it- self on the names of his friends and on his own: Miss Joyce was Mam'selle La Joyeuse, sometimes a la parte d'Acre (Gatacre) ; Walker, of Scarborough, was ad- dressed as Peregrinator, Ambulator, Walkere, Philtate, etc. ; while his own signature to his intimate friends was often Lini Gustos, Giovanni, John the Anglo- Saxon, Ling-guard, and once, towards the end of his life, he "who has lingered long enough." Immediately upon Dr. Wiseman's election to the See of Melipota- mus, Lingard had dubbed him the honey-pot bishop, a conceit which pleased his fancy, as can be imagined by those who remember the mellifluous smoothness of much of Wiseman's writing. When composing an article for the Dublin Review (August, 1841, p. 167) in defence of Wiseman against the attacks of Mr. William Palmer, of Oxford,* Lingard bethought him of his joke, and wrote to Walker : " In bed I thought of the matter, and began with laughing at the regularity with which Mr. Palmer every quarter fires a shot at the Bishop of Melipotamus (is that the name? that or something like it — if so, a new idea, I must speak of the honied way in which he answers: [" And from his honied lips there poured a flood of sweet- ness." — Iliad, I. 249.] Is not that the verse? I have no Homer. In your answer, send the verse back with the accents)." * Wm. Palmer (1803-1885), theologian and ecclesiastical antiquary. He published his Apostolical Jurisdiction and Succession of the English Episcopacy, in 1840, against the objections of Dr. Wiseman in the Dublin Review (Vols. V, VII, and VIII), and a trenchant counter-attack to Wiseman's attack on Tract XCI, in 1841. ";quoted against wiseman" 315 In the same letter he says: " I must not appear to take Dr. Wiseman under my protection, and I cannot support all that he has said about the Pope's patri- archal jurisdiction."* Another small point of difference between Lingard and Wiseman concerned music in Catholic chapels. Until the year 1840, it may be said that silence, — broken only by the murmur of the priest and acolyte in the Mass, and by the voice of the preacher, — almost universally reigned during the services of the Church; and it was a far cry — ^too far in Lingard's opinion — to the new fashion of grand services with women in the choir, " turning the Church into an Opera House." He wrote a strong article in the Catholic Magazine (1843, p. 291), entitled "Song and Service in the Church," against putting forward " such inducements as fine music and fine singing to attract a multitude that will pay as well as pray." But no differences of opinion could diminish the high esteem in which the two men held each other; we find Wiseman's tribute publicly expressed: " The ap- probation of such a distinguished man would sincerely gratify me: to be ever worthy of his approbation is far beyond my power." f On the other hand, to be quoted against Wiseman was always displeasing to Dr. Lingard. " How am I quoted against Dr. Wiseman?" he replies to an in- quiry from John Walker,J respecting an article in the Tablet newspapier. " I suspect "because I have re- peatedly told Fletcher that I never expected any of the * The article appeared under the title, "The Ancient Church of England and the Liturgy of the Anglican Church." t Wiseman's reply to Dr. Turton, afterwards Bishop of Ely, who in 1837 had attacked his Doctrine of the Eucharist, and had referred to Lingard's New Version of the Gospels. X Lingard to Walker, 15th September, 1841. 3i6 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Puseyites to join us. It is very strange in the man thus to pit me against Dr. Wiseman, and more es- pecially as my poor innocent pun in the Dublin, will probably be taken now as a hint of disapprobation." And although he longed on another occasion to let Dr. Wiseman know that he did not agree with him, he refrained from defending; himself—" not through fear of his logic, but through fear of gratifying the Protestants by the spectacle of a battle between us." When he received Walker's praises of his new edition of the Anglo-Saxon Church, he replied that they gave him both pleasure and pain. " It was pleasant to note your kindness . . . and rather painful, because you appeared to put me in antagonism with Dr. Wiseman." The same letter (27th April, 1845) conveys the in- telligence that at the episcopal synod in London, Dr. Wiseman had proposed that he should be desired to translate the catechism of the Council of Trent, and that all priests should be required to make it the text- book in their explanations of the catechism. It was carried by acclamation, and Dr. Brown was commis- sioned to carry the joint request of all the prelates to Lingard. The letter continues : " I objected strongly, and asked why Dolman's trans- lation will not serve their purpose. They do not approve of that translation, and repeat their request. I have gone so far as to say that I will make a trial of a small portion. If the trial pleases me, I may go on: if not, I shall leave off. I am too feeble and too ailing tc undertake a work which must occupy me more than a year, and has nothing in it very alluring," * A few months previously (13th April, 1844) Lin- gard tells of an honour done to him in Rome. The rectorship of the English College was vacant, and the * Lingard does not seem to have made the translation. INVITATION TO ROME 317 Cardinal-protector inquired of Dr. Brown, who was then in Rome, if he thought Dr. Lingard would accept the office. "Dr. Brown replied," writes Lingard, " No, for I was unable to travel twenty miles from home." * Thus the invitation of Pope Leo XII in 1825, to Lingard to settle in Rome, was renewed by the Roman authorities twenty-nine years later. Yet a third honour paid to him is recorded in a letter of 3rd July, 1845 : " Let me tell you. I had lately a letter from Mr. Knight, the Jesuit at Preston, who says that he had recently been at Stonyhurst, and found my catechism had been adopted there as the book of catechetical instruc- tion for the more advanced portion of the scholars. — There's for you." A previous letter tells of friendly intercourse with Stonyhurst: " I have had more Jesuits calling on me. They made me a present of a large salmon caught in their [preserves?]. I shall be obliged to become a novice." There were not many political questions, except that of education and the "Endowments Bill" of 1844, which interested Lingard at this time. With regard to Irish affairs, he wrote in 1842 that he did not admire the plan of buying the Courier paper: " In fact I think O'Connell has overreached himself. He thought to alarm by setting up agitation for repeal, and by that means turned out his friends the Whig minis- ters. What folly! Repeal meetings in England: Irish- men spouting I " O'Connell's doings were to lead to his trial in January, 1844, and condemnation to a year's im- * Dr. Thomas Grant, d.d. (1805-1870), afterwards 6rst Bishop of Southwark, was appointed rector of the English College in Rome on October 13th, 1844. 3i8 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD prisonment and a fine of £2000.* Lingard wrote in the previous August: " I have read Dan's philippic on Brougham. I am pleased with it;— yet it is black- guardish." And on the sth September: " I have all along thought with Judge Ball that the Convention Act will strangle Dan. Sir Robert Peel has out-generalled him. I always asked what, after he had speechified in every county in Ireland, he meant to do? He would then be at the end of his tether, at least, of all legal tether. If he went a step further, he would be caught, and that is the object of ministers. You may depend on that." In January, 1845, Lingard wrote to Walker: " You may still cling to Dan. I think that he has acted a most imprudent part — and that his palmy days are over. I have read none of the papers respecting the commission for religious trusts in Ireland, but should certainly side with Dr. Murray if I were interested in it. Be assured that the clamour is excited against it by the fear of agitators, that agitation will be at an end. What an infamous fellow is Lucas by advising the Irish to petition the Pope, not to come to any agreement with our government If What is this but to set the Irishman's hatred of English superiority in antagonism with his attachment to his religion, I fear the consequences." After the admission that he had read Shee's publi- cation in the Tablet, in January, 1845, and liked it much, Lingard continued: "Still I reprobate O'Con- * The judgment was reversed by the House of Lords in September, 1844. t Frederick Lucas (1812-1855), journalist and politician. A Quaker by birth, he became a Catholic, and founded the Tablet weekly journal in 1840. In the conduct of his paper, Lucas's strong and uncompromising policy soon brought him into disagreement with a powerful section of the English Catholics, who counselled greater prudence and moderation. This threw him more and more upon the support of the Irish clergy, and on that of the " Young Ireland " party. At the close of 1849, he transferred the publishing offices of the Tablet horn London to Dublin, and became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." LOCKWOOD AND CATTERICK 319 nell's conduct. He might have done much for his country and rehgion — ^now he seems to care for nothing but agitation, and that for a point which he will never carry." In the month of April, 1845, Sir Edward Vavasour, of Hazelwood Hall, wrote to Dr. Lingard that the previous week, in removing a flag in the floor of his chapel, he had found immediately under it, as if de- posited there in a hurry for concealment, a parcel in a small stone trough. On examination it proved to be a long piece of linen, enclosing two human heads in a state of great preservation. There was no tradition nor paper in the family about them. Lingard at once surmised that they were the heads of two priests — Lock- wood and Catterick, executed at York on the •13th April, 1642 — ^and advised Sir Edward Vavasour to have them examined by a scientific person. Lockwood was eighty-seven, Catterick thirty-five years old. If the ages of the heads corresponded, his conjecture would appear very probable. Miss Joyce heard of the discovery, and immediately wrote to Dr. Lingard for further information, which he furnished in the following charming letter : "isi 'May, 1845. ECCELLENZA, — I mean to write you a letter after the manner of a French sermon, at least of such sermons as were in vogue in my young days. They were always divided into two or three points, and at the end of each point the preacher blew his nose. At the same instant the whole congregation began blowing noses, coughing, taking snuff, sneezing, etc. etc. In three or four minutes the vacarme ceased, and the preacher recommenced. Know then that this epistle will be divided into three points, 1° History, 2° Conjecture, 3° Fact. Voild mes trois points. First, History. If you look into Challoner's 320 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Missionary Priests you will find that J. Lockwood and Edmund Catterick were executed at York on April 13, 1642, and their heads fixed on spikes over two gates of the city [Bootham and Micklegate]. Voild mon premier point. Second, Conjecture. Some Catholics, perhaps by bribery, perhaps under the cover of a dark and stormy night, got possession of the two heads, and carried them off for burial at Hazlewood, near Tadcaster. Why there in particular? Because as Hazlewood was extra-parochial, the church was the property of the family, and as the family were Catholics, the catholic was the only service performed there. Voild mon deuxieme point." The third point, " Fact," is a repetition of the ac- count given by Sir Edward Vavasour of the discovery of the heads, and Lingard, after promising to let Miss Joyce knovvr the result of the scientific examination of the heads, concludes: " Don't you think it would be a good thing to borrow them for a day or two, to be used as ornaments for McNeile's pulpit?-" * Further letters to Miss Joyce, and to other corre- spondents show the keen interest aroused by the dis- covery; and by the verdict of the scientists that one of the skulls belonged to a person twice the age of the other. " This is in favour of my conjecture, but there is no proof of their having been fixed on spikes. Why? because all the lower parts of the heads, the lower jaws, etc., are wanting. This, however, furnishes no proof against me, because the muscles confining the lower jaw are the first to decay, and would detach the jaw from the rest of the * Hugh McNiele (1795-1879), Dean of Ripon. In 1834 appointed per- petual curate of St. Jude's, Liverpool. He was strenuously opposed to the Church of Rome, and held strong evangelical opinions, both which senti- ments found vehement expression in his pulpit utterances. A MEMORABLE SCAR 321 head, if it were kept long enough above the gate. That both heads are in this respect in the same state is what one might expect, if they had been companions in ex- posure." We find a very different subject treated in two of these letters to Miss Joyce. Lingard tells her that after disposing of all his pets in the tomb, he never meant to have another, but a Liverpool friend has compelled him to have one whether he would or no, by sending) him, without any previous information, " a tortoise, a very young one, just imported from the banks of the Hudson."* He begs her, if she is learned in tor- toisology, to give him some instruction, for he knows nothing of the stranger's habits, haimts, or appetite. " Horace says that he was much prized at the feasts of the gods Dapibus supremi Grata testudo Jovis." The year 1845 will remain ever memorable in the religious annals of England. The vanguard of the troop of distinguished men who, during the year, steadily passed from the ranks of Anglicanism to the Church of their forefathers, was notably led by W. G. Ward, with his refusal to retract any part of his Ideal, of a Christian Church; and then Faber, Dalgairns, Oakley, and others hardly less noteworthy, heralded the advent of their great leader, Newman. " What a vic- tory Ward has won/' wrote Lingard to Walker, shortly before Ward's degradation by convocation, in the Shel- donian Theatre on the 13th February; and a few months later (30th Augtist) : " I am better pleased than you seem to be with Ward's letter. It is not an account of the motives which induced him to come over, but a defence of his conduct against the charge of inconsistency with his writings. His letter * The tortoise, which became a great favourite, and in after years was known as "Moses," survived Dr. Lingard for fifty years. 322 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD shows the workings of his mind, and of most minds among them, in persuading themselves that they may still remain in the Anglican Church; and plainly proves that he left them because the Anglican Church has not the authority to teach. She teaches the doctrines in the Creeds because she sees good reason to believe them, — the Catholic Church because she has the authority to teach. So he. We must allow them to express themselves in a different manner from us, because the movement does not originate from us but with themselves.* Newman, I am told, seeks to justify his conduct in remaining among them by the example of the Israelites who separated from the Jews, and yet were not cast off by God on that account, since He sent prophets to them." " Dr. Wiseman has confirmed Ward and his wife," be wrote on the i8th September: " He [Ward] says that the great body of Puseyites had persuaded themselves that Newman was destined to reform the Anglican Church, not to become papist; that the announcement of his intended change had filled them with confusion; that they now rant against him and join with his enemies or hold their tongues. Ward thinks that he will be followed by Oakley and the young men at Little- more, and by hardly any one else.f Perhaps Ward is mortified that he has not drawn a tail after him." * W. G. Ward (1812-1882), theologian and controversialist. He was de- prived of his mathematical lectureship at Balliol in 1841 on account of his pamphlets in support of Tract XC, and he resigned his fellowship after his condemnation in 1845. He and his wife were received into the Catholic Church on the 5th September of the same year. + Frederick Oakley (1802-1880), youngest son of Sir Charles Oakley, Bart. He was described by Newman as "an almost typical Oxford man." In 1839 he became minister of Margaret Chapel, Margaret Street, London, and intro- duced that form of worship which is known as ritualism. On Ward's con- demnation Oakley declared his adhesion to Tract XC ; his bishop thereupon called upon him to resign, and instituted proceedings against him in the Court of Arches. He was condemned with costs, and, in September, 1845, joined Newman's community at Littlemore. He was received into the Catholic Church on the 29th October, and ordained priest by Dr. Wiseman in 1848. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 323 On the 9th October, Father Dominic, of the order of Passionists, who had arrived at Littlemore the pre- vious day, received John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church; and Lingaxd wrote a few days later (5th November) to Mr. Husenbeth: " I think with you that serious protestants must feel alarm at these numerous defections from them, — but I think the Anglican Church will become more powerful after it has been left by the more catholicly inclined. Pusey is evidently against us, or against coming over to us." "What think you of Pusey?" he wrote to Walker. " Oakley says that he will act as a pope half-way be- tween Rome and Canterbury." And in a previous letter (8th December) to the same correspondent: " Newman, if I may believe one who ought to know, is to be as he wishes, what he has hitherto been, the lay abbot of his monastery at Littlemore . . . and to it he expects to decoy, as he has hitherto done, some of the choicest subjects of the University." " Let the converts write in their own way," is the reply ( 17th December) to some objection of Walker's: " They must know better than we do what is most likely to influence the protestant mind. I have not read New- man, nor Oakley, nor could ever get through any one of Ward's productions. They are all inconceivably lengthy and tiresome. Perhaps that is partly owing to my being indisposed to read, from pain." In a later letter (27th April, 1848) there appears a like remark. He says he will get some of Oakley's lectures : " There appears to me a superabundance of wordiness and dreaminess in all the writings of the Oxford tract- 324 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD arians, whether they come over to us or not. They tor- ment me dreadfully, for they never come to the real point, but are always preparing for it." Lingard's calm and clear-sighted judgment pre- vented him from sharing the optimistic views which many— especially among the converts— lentertained at this time. Undazzled by the succession of brilliant conversions, he turned his thoughts to the losses suf- fered among his own people. Referring, in a letter to John Walker (30th August, 1845), to a Status. Missionis lately published by Dr. Griffiths, vicar-apos- tolic of the London District, he remarks: " He has omitted, what they all do, the number of those who quit us, in opposition to those who join us. The number is great, if you consider the children who are perverted in the poor-houses in many places, and in the houses where they are apprenticed, the servants, etc. etc." Mr. Sibthorpe had by this time wandered back to Anglicanism. Walker, of Scarborough, was his friend, and there is a kindly and curiously prophetic letter from Lingard to the latter (November 14th, 1845) : " Depend upon it ... he spoke of Newman's old system, that their Church has all the old creeds, that God has placed them in it, and thus, as such was His will, it is their duty not to leave, but to remain in it and reform it. This is wretched sophistry indeed, but it harmonizes with their old and cherished feelings, and with their present wishes. . . , Do not bore the good man, but talk with him on other subjects, unless he reverts to this. Make him look upon you as a friend. ... I consider him as one of those weak men who consult others, and always feel disposed to agree with their last adviser. I suspect that he will con- tinue to oscillate between the two churches till the end: and that end will be made in the church to which the NEWMAN AT USHAW 325 person into whose hands he may chance to fall may belong." Four days later he wrote to Mr. Husenbeth, that he was glad to hear from him that Newman's book was coming out {Essay on Development) : . " When he has published it, he must be set to some- thing else. These converts must be employed. Had he a small establishment somewhere, as he had at Little- more, he might bring over more, and have something to occupy his zeal. Otherwise he will be of little use to us, and the excitement caused by his conversion will die away. From much that I know I conclude that Sibthorpe, had he had a congregation (I do not mean to say that he should have had one), would never have left us. But he is as much dissatisfied with the Anglican bishops, for they will not employ him. Poor manl" After his conversion^ Newman spent some months at Oscott, and' accepted an invitation to Ushaw. Mr. Faber was asked at the same time, but, as appears from a letter of 126th January, 1846, from Lingard to Walker, Newman was accompanied by the most intimate of his friends — Ambrose St. John.* On hear- ing of the projected visit, Lingard had written to Dr. Tate, who was then vice-president of the college, to express his satisfaction. "Show yourselves to them; edify them and make use of them " — and then his practical mind explains itself: " By that I mean, see if you cannot obtain the services of some of them; for as some must be very poor, a professor's place with you might be worth their accept- * Rev. Ambrose St. John (1815-1875), curate to Rev. Henry Wilberforce at East Farleigh. He was received into the Catholic Church at Prior Park in September, 1845, and became one of the original members of the Birming- ham Oratory. He was for ten years head master of the Oratory School at Edgbaston. 326 LIFE OF JOHN LINGA^D ance, and Newman might point out a person deserving of it. My great fear is that, if they have nothing to do and be urged by poverty in the bargain, they may be tempted to leave us again. I see objections, and therefore throw this out only as worth consideration." Lingard was naturally anxious to know what im- pression Ushaw had made on the two visitors, and if they had been satisfied with the attention shown to them; but Walker's answer to his inquiries was con- sumed in one of his final burnings, as was also — un- fortunately — a second letter which is referred to in Lingard's next: " I like your story about Newman in the Dormitory." CHAPTER XV MR. DOLMAN, the survivor of the publishing firm of Dolman and Booker, had purchased the copy- right of Lingard's History of England from Baldwin in 1844. The recent Copyright Act of 1842, extend- ing the period to forty years, gave that extension to Lingard; but, with his usual generosity, when Dolman applied to him for the additional years, he signed a paper making them over to him, without demanding anything in return. " rhaps it was unwise," he admits in a letter to Mr. Silvertop, " but as it is done, it is not worth while to detail my reasons." In 1846 Dolman determined to bring out a library edition of the work — the revision of which was to be Dr. Lingard's last literary labotur. He had a high opinion of Dolman's character; he wrote to Walker early in 1846 that Dolman was a credit to the Catholics. "All other religious parties have respect- able booksellers. Dolman is the only one among us that a igentleman could trade with." Then comes one of the writer's shrewd prophecies: " I only fear that he enters into too many speculations. I should be sorry to urge him into an edition, which might beggar him." * * Charles Dolman (1805-1863), publisher and bookseller. Having exhausted his own means in bringing out fine editions of rare books, he started the Catholic Bookselling and Publishing Co. Dissensions broke out almost at once among the directors, and the company resulted in com- plete failure. Dolman, disappointed and disheartened, retired to Paris, where he died. He was publisher of the Catholic Magazine until 1844, and then started Dolman? s Magazine, of which the Rev. E. Price became editor. 327 328 LIFE OF. JOHN LINGARD Lingard sent the first volume to the printer in June : the reviser of the press was to be— as he wrote with satisfaction to Walker— Mr. Turnbull, the convert from Edinburgh. " I am glad of it," be adds. " He is a very learned antiqtiary, and will look carefully after the spelling of ancient names," etc. That first volume brought its author into amusing collision with Miss Strickland, with regard to the Bayeux tapestry. He had made careful inquiries, with the help of Mr. Tierney, and wrote to him on the 1 6th July : " Mine will only be a note, without entering into the pith of the subject. It is provoked by Miss Strickland's second edition. I had observed to her that there is not a shadow of any authority or reason to suppose that the tapestry was the work of Matilda. Yet she has, not only for the illustration of her volume, a print of Matilda and her maids at work, but a very pettish, silly outburst against those antiquarians who deny that she wrought it."* Miss Strickland and Lingard had been in frequent correspondence; she had not only consulted him, but had occasionally borrowed from him without acknow- ledgment. He wrote to Edward Price ( 1 5th Octo- ber, 1 846), with reference to an article in Dolman's Magazine about Miss Strickland and himself: " I mentioned it to Mr. Dolman because I feared that the readers of the new edition, who have not previously read the duodecimo edition, may suppose that I have borrowed these passages from Miss Strickland, which she has in fact borrowed from me." Lingard had previously (25th October, 1842) ob- served to John Walker that with respect to Mary * Dolman's Magazine contained an article showing that Miss Strickland had stolen from Lingard, as much as Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors had stolen from her. Lingard's account of Queen Elizabeth's death from the MS. of Lady Southwell, both in text and notes was " worked up by her into narrative almost without the change of a single word." (Lingard to Walker, 6th October, 1846.) MISS AGNES STRICKLAND 329 Tudor's Coronation oath', all Miss Strickland should have said was that the oath contained nothing about the headship of the Church; after that, the heralds proclaimed her, etc. : " The anti-papal is a fiction of Miss Strickland. Gar- diner would not move as fast as the zealots wished him, and therefore succeeded. Miss Strickland has translated towards the end a letter of Mary to Philip, in which every line contains a blunder. I have sent her a correct translation." A year later, he wrote again: " The greatest of Miss Strickland's peccadillos is that she cares not for authority. Any anecdote which will please the readers has sufficient authority for her. She gives it as an undisputed fact." Sometimes Miss Strickland's mistakes gave Lingard trouble, as when she published a passage from the in- edited memoirs of the Vicomte de Chateaubriand (a courtier in the time of Francis I) respecting Annei Boleyn. Lingard wrote to a friend in Paris to make extracts for him from the same MS., and received the reply that the MS. " est une chimere." The memoirs were the composition of a man named Jacob in 1837, and never published. " What a hoax for Miss Strick- land," wrote Lingard to John Walker. " It was a historical novel." When preparing the preface for the new edition of his History, in reply to some remark of Walker's, he wrote (27th April, 1849): " I dare say that I have occasionally applied a laud- atory epithet to the name of Miss Strickland, and occasion- ally I have pointed out her mistakes, but once only by name. She is, or was, very ignorant of the French lan- guage, but in her account of Anne Boleyn she has com- 330 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD pelled me to say that she was hoaxed by some foreign correspondent. No; it was not so: she hoaxed herself. ... I have therefore come to the rescue of Anne's character, told the history of the mistake, and maintained that the fair authoress was led astray by the fraud of her French correspondent. I think it is complimentary on the whole, but I do not believe that she will forgive me. The blunders are 50 numerous and so obvious. In some places she has copied me word for word; people who observe the coincidence vidll suppose in this new edition that I have copied from her." Mr. Tumbull, the reviser for the press, strongly, objected to any compliments being paid to Miss Strick- land in the preface to the History.* He wrote to Lin- gard begging him to expunge them, declaring that Miss Strickland was simply " a gatherer of other men's stuff," that " 'With, singular effrontery she poked her nose into every literary man's study and fairly bullied them out of the matter, by the accumulation of which she lived." In repeating the passage in a letter to Walker (5th December, 1849), Lingard comments " that I can believe from her frequent applications here." Tumbull declared that be spoke the sentiments of Thos. Thomson f (" Who is he?" asks Lingard), C. R. Sharpe,J Lord Lindsay, § Palgrave,]] and others with whom he was familiar, and to whose opinion most * W. B. Tumbull (1811-1862), antiquary, founded Abbotsford Club in 1834. t Thomas Thomson (1798-1869), historian and geographer, born at Glasgow. He wrote The Comprehensive History of England and many other works. % C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe (I78i?-i85i), antiquary and artist. In 1»I7 edited Kirkton's Inner History of the Church of Scotland. § Alexander Wm. Lindsay (1812-1880), twenty-fifth Earl of Crawford. Wrote Lives of the Lindsays and other works. II Sir Francis Palgrave (1788-1861). Appointed Deputy-Keeper of Her Majesty's Records in 1838. SERJEANT TALFOURD'S TRIBUTE 331 men would defer. Lingard thereupon ordered the pas- sage to be omitted and wrote to Walker: " I agree also with another observation of his, that her writings do not belong to that high class of literature to which history pertains. They are merely scraps from other men's productions." Having made up his mind to expunge the passage, Lingard's kindly heart immediately relented, and the very same day (5th December, 1849) he wrote another letter to Walker: " I have resolved to keep the compliments to Miss Strickland with the alteration of a word or two. But be sure that in London you say nothing on the subject to offend Turnbull. I am under infinite obligations to him for very important works, and extracts of passages." Lingard's life, as well as his labours, ran the risk of being brought to an end by a fall over a heap of masonry in the autumn of 1846. On the 31st October he wrote to Dr. Tate to thank him for his kind in- quiries : " I was so lucky as to save my head from much harm with my hands. The left knee suffered most by my fall- ing on a 'flag. Some pain remains in it, but that will soon be well: and then good-bye to the fall," As Lingard continued to make light of all bodily ill-haps, so the inveterate modesty of his youth remained with him in old age. Among other in- stances may be cited a complaint to Mr. Dolman that a writer in his Magazine had given him exaggerated praise. The writer, Mr. Keon's, sole reply was to send Dr. Lingard the following extract from a letter by Mr. Setjeant Talfourd: " In all you say of the great and good Dr. Lingalrd, I rejoice to express my entire 332 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD concurrence."* Shortly afterwards (29th October, 1846) Lingard wrote to Walker: "I insist that you shall not write as if it were in my defence, nor give me any particular praise, as you will be disposed to do. But let it appear that your object is merely to elicit the real truth." The work Walker was about to criticise was Carlyle's Cromwell, which had appeared the previous autumn. The subject was the more interesting to Lingard that he was approaching it in the revision of his History, and, needless to say, his view of Crom- well's conduct in Ireland was entirely opposed to that of Carlyle. In the first place, he supplied Mr. Walker with valuable hints for his review, and then with infinite care and pains verified his authorities for his own statements, especially regarding the massacres at Wex- ford and Drogheda. " I know," he wrote, 29th Octo- ber, 1846, "that some persons contend that there is no proof of the massacres attributed to Cromwell there. ... I recollect that in writing on that subject I was aided by documents from Rome. . . . What they were I do not recollect." His numerous letters to Coulston, Walker, Tierney, and Oliver show his scrupulous ex- actitude, and how successfully he overcame the lapses in his own memory and the trouble of failing eyesight : — he was seventy-seven years of age. " It strikes me," he wrote to Dr. Oliver (ist Septem- ber, 1848), asking for a paper in his possession: • Miles Gerald Keon (1821-1875), Colonial-Secretary and author, son of Miles G. Keon, of Tipperary, by his wife, the Countess Magawly. Educated at Stonyhurst. In April, 1846, Keon became editor of Dolman's Magazine. He resigned the editorial chair in the following November, to devote more time to the completion of an historical work. He married a daughter of Major Hawkes in 1846, and secured an appointment on the Morning Post, which he held for ten years. In 1858, through the influence of Lord Lytton, he was made Colonial-Secretary of Bermuda, a post which he held until his death. CARLYLE'S CROMWELL 333 " that it will probably contain much respecting the suffer- ings of Ireland from the cruelty and tyranny of Cromwell, which I might victoriously oppose to Carlyle's defence of that rascal. He is the God of Carlyle's idolatry: who . . . undertakes to prove that he governed Ireland with great forbearance and clemency. . . . Carlyle is a great gun among many persons, and I find it necessary to defend myself against his authority." Hearing that his account of the massacres had been termed " imaginary," Lingard vsrote (nth July, 1848) to Mr. Coulston: " I suspect it is by that humbug or charlatan Carlyle, who has made Cromwell the idol of his worship. Can you tell me if I am right in my con- jecture?" He discovered that the accusation against himself had not been made by Carlyle, who hkd, how- ever, " very unfairly given but one of Cromwell's oflficial accounts of the capture of Drogheda, though he sent three at different times, and of very irreconcilable im- port," plainly showing " the cunning and hypocrisy of the man." ' M 1 1 I While carrying on his investigations, Lingard wrote to Walker (29th January, 1848): " Some one undoubtedly is endeavouring to make a fool of Carlyle. How strange I He praises Cromwell for his kindness and mercifulness, and Lamartine does the same for Robespierre, who, if you will believe him, used to shed tears when he heard of the cruelties committed by his party I A paper has lately been discovered in the State Paper Office, a petition for relief to Charles II from the people of Wexford. ' The said usurper did on the 9th Oct. 1649 soe powerfully assault your petitioners, that he entered the town, and put man, woman, and child, to a very few, to the sword, where among the rest, the governor lost his life, and others of the soldiers and inhabitants to the number of i 500 persons,' 334 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD This will do for me. It does not, indeed, expressly mention the massacre at the great cross, but by including women and children goes far to confirm it." Finding that Carlyle admitted the massacres, though' he defended them on the principle that Cromwell thought himself bound in conscience to extirpate popery and resistance to the Parliament, which Lin- gard pronoimces " the strangest nonsense I ever met with," he tells his correspondent that he has cut off much of his note, softened it down in other parts, and despatched it, the skeleton of what it was intended to be: " I was sorry to sacrifice much that I liked, sarcastic enough and condemnatory of Carlyle, and yet, as it ap- peared to me, uncalled for; he nowhere mentions me, why then should I fall foul of him by name? I have con- tented myself therefore with speaking in general terms of the worshippers of that hero. . . . Price [the editor], after all these castrations, is delighted with the note, so I hope most of my readers will be. Carlyle and his friends will criticize it." A few months earlier (24th July) Lingard had written to Tierney: " I have long looked upon Carlyle, with his /Anglo- German jargon and pompous profundity, as a complete humbug. In this case some one must have cruelly played upon his credulity and adoration for his idol : for I can conceive no motive for his adoption of the forgery, if he had known of it. That it is a forgery is now evident." Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1847, Lingard had been invited by Drs. Newsham and Tate, president and vice-president of Ushaw, to present a window to the chapel. He answered in a characteristic letter that there were many things he would like to know before returning a final answer — ^as to cost, size, etc. " I do GIVES WINDOW TO USHAW 335 not approve of your plan," he continues. " Most cer- tainly I will not put up a window to exhibit a sample of my vanity to future generations." This referred to the project that the window should commemorate Catholic historians from Bede upwards. " I have an- swered," he wrote to Walker (6th February, 1847), " that I have often thought of giving a small window, though not to record my own name." Satisfied on this point, he wrote in March to Dr. Tate: "Be it so, then. Order the window, I will pay for it. — " I suppose that you chose St. Aldhelm, Beda, Alcuin, because they are the three of whom I have written in my Anglo-Saxon Church. Very well. Aldhelm, as bishop, will, I suppose, occupy the middle, Bede on one side, Alcuin on the other. ' Aldhelmus Epus — Beda Presbyter — Alcuin Diaconus.' Where will you find the real costume of an Anglo- Saxon bishop? I will send it you at once." He accordingly sent — for the college library — a copy of St. Ethelwold's Benedictional, with a mark at plate XXIX — a print of St. Swithin — drawing attention to the various points of interest: the absence of crosier and mitre, the tonsure, the exact form of chasuble, maniple and stole. He added a few facsimiles of various forms of old mitres, with the remark, " very different things from modern ones. I do not believe they were used at any part of the service, but were merely caps to protect the head from cold." He wished for no other mention of himself as donor than to have " somewhere such a scroll as this — Scriptoribus Anglo-Saxonibus. J. L." As an exhortation to the students he desired that the beautiful passage from Alcuin should be placed on the window: " Recordamini quam nobilis habuistis patris, neque sitis tantorum pro- genitorum degeneres filii." 336 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Pugin was the architect of the chapel, and had already drawn the cartoons for the three figures, which he reftised to change. But Lingard was firm: I have told Tate," he wrote to Walker, "that I will have St. Aldhelm in the costume of an Anglo-Saxon bishop, and therefore he must get St. Swithin in the Benedic- tional copied at Ushaw and coloured properly, and send it to Haxdman's, at Birmingham, with orders to substitute it for Pugin's figure, unless they be alike in costume." * Puigin was in Italy. Dr. Tate vnrote to Mr. Hardman to inquire if he would venture to make alterations in his drawings; but this he naturally declined to do before Pugin's return, although he sent word that he could contrive to fulfil Dr. Lingard's wishes. The latter wrote to Walker, nth June: "Pugin is in Italy. He found nothing to admire. There is nothing Gothic. In Florence and the neighbouring cities he was delighted vsdth remains of mediaeval art." The difficulty about Lingard's window seems to have been happily settled, and it was set up the following year in the north wall of the chapel. In a letter to Tate, Lingard remarks: " Thomas Skaife, the miniature painter, has been here some days. He is taking my portrait for himself, sup- posing that, if he succeed, he may get orders for copies from Catholics in London. Not very likely in these days. Fools and their money are soon parted: but at present few fools have money to part with."f * John Hardman (1812-1867), grandson of James Hardman, who settled at Birmingham in the middle of the eighteenth century as button-maker and medallist. Becoming acquainted with Pugin, he became enthusiastically interested in the revival of all the external adjuncts of Catholic worship. In 1838 he founded the well-known ecclesiastical metal-works, to which, in 1845, he added stained-glass works, t All trace of this miniature has disappeared ; it remained in the painter's family till u few years ago, when it was raffled and won by a maidservant. The only portrait of himself, of which Lingard approved, was the oil-painting A FINANCIAL CRISIS 337 The Ushaw chapel was dedicated in the month of October, 1848, and in answer to Dr. Newsham's in- vitation to be present, Lingard wrote: " Be assured that I value it highly, and should be most happy to avail myself of it, if it were in my power. That you would take care to make me comfortable I have no doubt; but to get me there alive would be the difficulty. 'Hie labor, hie opus est.' ... It is not more than once in the year that I venture as far as Lancaster. The only thing that I can do is to attend in spirit, and join my prayers with all yours to invoke the blessing of God on an establishment which, I trust, will prove the preserva- tion of religion in these northern counties. How it would gratify me to be present, to see the old place in its present improved state, to visit the cemetery where rest the mortal remains of so many revered charac- ters, and where, I trust, that one day my own will be deposited; to see the dedication of the new and glorious church, performed too, I hope, by the Bishop of the dis- trict, and to enjoy the company of you and Dr. Tate, and many old acquaintances. But all this can exist only in imagination; it will serve, however, to amuse the mind during these present dark evenings, and to draw the thoughts to objects of higher interest." In the year 1848 a great financial crisis, with an extraordinary fall in the value of railway stock, afflicted all classes of the community. Lingard wrote to Mr. Silvertop (9th July) that he was sorry to hear of the crash of Catholic property — if better luck does not attend some of the estates he mentions " there will remain very little catholic influence in the north of England." He suffered with' the rest of the world, and was doubtful whether he could pay for his window by Lonsdale. Of the portrait by Ramsay [engraved by Lover, ] he wrote that it pleased neither the painter nor himself. The Skaife miniature appears as frontispiece to the sixth edition of the History. 338 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD at Ushaw. He wrote to the president, Dr. Newsham, on the 20th August : "What a fall in the value of railway property I Our former visions have vanished. We shall not, unless there be a reaction later, have more than £200 per annum. I am almost reduced to poverty, but I hope that matters will mend, and that I shall be able in time to pay for my window." In Ireland the potato crop had failed in 1846, and the following! year had seen the terrible desolation of the great famine throughout the afifiicted land. O'Con- nell died at Genoa, on his way to Rome, on the 15th May, and Smith O'Brien, Meagher, and O'Gormon, leaders of the " Young Ireland " or " physical force " party, — after going in deputation to Lamartine and the Provisional Government of France, in April, 1848, in the hope of gaining their assistance, — raised the re- bellion which was with ease suppressed in three days in the following July. The English people had, both individually and publicly — ^the government grants in 1847 amounted to ten millions sterling — hastened to the relief of the afflicted people, and Lingard had contributed his portion. Early in 1848 we find two interesting appreciations by the veteran historian in the Walker correspondence. On the 13th January he wrote : " I was vexed at the credulity of Lords Arundell and Shrewsbury [in accepting as genuine the Book of Lan- daff *]. But I am more vexed at the Irish bishops. If they write, it is not to write common sense, but to display their talents for declamation. In fact to me it is plain that they entertain a rooted antipathy to everything Eng- * The Book of Landaff was, in Lingard's opinion, an imposture of the twelfth century. With the exception of a few deeds, which appeared authentic, it contained so many evident fables that it was impossible to give it any credit. (Lingard to Walker, 7th December, 1848.) THE IRISH FAMINE 339 lish, and would, if possible, avenge on us the misrule of our ancestors. But I believe that this misrule was in a great measure of their own producing. They think not of the effect which their writings may produce here, but how they will please their own people." On the 27th of the same month Lingard wrote again : " I think that these episcopal missives (Irish, I mean) do much harm. They shew that the writers are rebels at heart. They continually remind the masses that, if they are miserable, it is owing to the English, and therefore no gratitude is due for the charity of last year. If nothing that we do for them deserves a return, because the ances- tors of Englishmen behaved ill to their ancestors, how long is this ill blood to be kept up? Through seven generations — No I through seventy times seven. The Irish cannot live but in a tempest. I see the Irish Trappists have two deputies in Rome, endeavouring to get rid of their abbot. Dr. Gradwell told me it was impossible to conceive the lies and calumnies put for- ward at Rome, against persons selected for bishops. He said that there was hardly one against whom charges were not sent. ... He mentioned to me one or two who had been sent for to Propaganda to refute these charges, and who, when they had done so, had, through vexation, re- fused the mitre and remained there in exile. He men- tioned one who died of grief." The stirring events abroad are very briefly noted by Lingard during 1848. "So Guizot is gone," he wrote on the 20th February, " and Louis Philippe is gone, and monarchy I fear is gone, and war defences must I fear be provided, etc. etc. Yet I entertain a hope that a monarchical government will yet be estab- lished in France." "Will the new French republic be able to keep goingPi" he wrote in March. " I doubt it." 340 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Pius IX was forced to fly from Rome. " I fear not for the Pope/' was Lingard's comment; "Providence will protect him." "Who will get the better in France?" he asks in January, 1849. " The new Presi- dent [Louis Napoleon] or the old assembly?. The clergy are to a man in favotir of the president. Why so?. Because they believe that he means to restore the Pope." At home, among the various interesting questions continually proposed to Lingard for his consideration and opinion, was that of the comparative lack of eminent laymen among the Catholics. Answering a letter of John Walker's in February, 1849, he wrote: " Is not this the gist of the question? How comes it that the Catholic colleges have turned out so few men of eminence among laymen, who have completed their course of education in such colleges? Now compare the circum- stances on both sides, that is the laymen educated fully in catholic colleges and in protestant places of education. 1° their paucity. The number of catholic laymen (to whom the enquiry is confined) is very small in comparison with the protestants, not equal, I should say, to one in five hundred every year. Therefore, cceteris paribus, you must expect the number of eminent protestants to be five hundred times greater than that of eminent catholics. . . . Encore, few laymen complete their education at catholic colleges unless they are gentlemen's sons, most of whom never think of applying to literary or scientific pursuits after they have left college. We have no lay fellowships — no lay professorships — no provision for the support of lay students after their course — no wealthy offices to which they may aspire. All these things stimulate the exertions of others, there is nothing of ih& kind for catholics. , . . It is to this, and not to their educational inferiority, that I ascribe their failing to attain the emin- ence of more fortunate individuals. If this be not the answer to what you seek, put the MACAULAY'S HISTORY 341 questions i — 2 — 3, and I will answer each according to my notions." As we find no further reference to the matter, it may be presumed that Lingard's answer was accepted as a satisfactory explanation of a state of things, which was causing anxiety among those charged with the education of youth. If Miss Agnes Strickland's feminine vagaries had caused Lingard amusement ^d some slight annoyance ; if Carlyle's Cromwell had given him trouble in the revision of his History by its inaccuracies and its fanci- ful portrait of that great commander, far greater was the interest, and we may say the indignation, aroused in the breast of the old historian when the first two volumes of Macaulay's History appeared at the end of 1848. The work of the great Whig historian, with its sonorous and stately periods, its air of studied and sober veracity, has now — ^thanks to the revelations of the ar- chives of Eiu-ope — fotmd its place among the romances of history ; and the writer who would quote his author- ity on the Stuart period would only be throwing doubt upon his own good faith. But in 1848, and for many years after, the book was received with enthusiasm and met with a success hardly paralleled by that of the novels of Scott and Dickens, and perhaps the poems of Lord Byron. And it was only by historical experts such as Lingard, the officials of the British Museum, and the State Paper Office, and a few other men, ^mong whom Tiemey, Oliver, and Walker might be counted, who could detect the suggestio falsi or the suppressio veri that disfigured almost every other page of a work, of which 13,000 copies were sold in four months, and for which the publishers handed the fortunate writer a cheque for £10,000. 342 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD In a previous work (Essays, Vol. Ill, p. 4) Macaulay, in speaking of the Triple Alliance in Charles II's reign, had remarked: "Dr. Lingard, a very able and well-informed writer, but whose great fundamental rule of judging seems to be that the popular opinion on historical questions cannot possibly be correct, speaks very slightingly of this cele- brated treaty, etc." When sending the extract to John Walker (23rd May, 1847), Lingard wrote: "I shall remember him when I get to that part." The passage must have served as an indication of Macaulay's methods, but can hardly have prepared Lingard for the number and the range of his misstatements. On applying for a copy of the book Lingard was informed that none wotild be issued " till the appetitei of the public had been wetted " (sic) by laudatory critiques to be inserted in the principal newspapers. " What! review a book before it has made its appear- ance," writes Lingard to his banker, Mr. Coulston. " Why, I think that even managers of banks might take a lesson in Jesuitry from book publishers! " Lin- gard received a copy the following day, and wrote to Coulston and also to Walker : " About 400 pages in Vol. I are called a History of England, but in reality contain only a string of critiques or essays on points connected with English history, such as he may have selected out of articles written by him for reviews, magazines, or newspapers. There is nothing in it that calls for a word from me. It will probably be otherwise with the reign of James II, which I have not had time to look at; but he boasts of advantages not possessed by other writers, of original papers supplied to him by Guizot, and by the Dutch government." As to the despatches of the French ambassadors. "THEREBY HANGS A TALE" 343 Barillon, Bon-Repos, and others, " thereby hangs a tale," adds Lingard: " Fox examined those despatches in Paris and pub- lished copies of them.* He did not see one in twenty. Mazure, the keeper of the archives, copied with his own hand the whole series for a History of James II, which he afterwards published: at his death I purchased for £5 all his papers, and by that means became possessed of exact copies, those which Macaulay so much prizes, and says no other writer has seen. Did he never see a note at p. 4 of my James, in which I say that to prevent mistake I quote the published papers by the pages in Fox, the un- published and original papers by their dates." " The papers were in this house for two years," wrrote Lingard to Mr. Price, " before I returned them to Paris. ... In the Dutch papers he [Macaulay] has great advantage over me." " It will not do. Macaulay does not write history," is his verdict after perusing the reviews in the Times: " One half of the quotations from him are of no authority. He has been fishing in cesspools and quag- mires, and has filled his memory with all kinds of filth and falsehood, which he retails, mixed up with facts, as if they were facts also. You might as well believe all the skits and witticisms and falsehoods which are preva- lent during a contested election." To Walker, Lingard wrote on the 27th December: "His work abounds in claptrap of every description: with truths that are made to tell as falsehoods. I explain by one example. He says that when James resolved to make war on the protestant religion, one of his plans was to establish a private press in the University for printing * Charles James Fox (1749-1806) began his History of the Revolution in j688 in 1797. It was published in 1808 by Lord Holland. The Appendix contains the transcripts of Barillon's correspondence made during Fox's visit to Paris in 1802. 344 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD controversial tracts. Now what is the truth? Obadiah Walker had a tract printed at the University press, and found that the sheets were sent furtively to one who meant to refute, so that the refutation came out almost as soon as the tract itself.* He then bought a press, and had it worked in one of his rooms in printing a second tract: and finding that he could not publish legally in this way without a licence from the King, he wrote to him for one, and obtained it. You see how different the two represen- tations make the thing. But thus he acts throughout. I cannot notice such things without making another book as long as my original work." " How glibly the Scotsman talks," he writes in a previous letter, " of popish idolatory and superstition, popish cruelty and intolerance, etc. etc. I hope some one will lash him for it." The review in the Quarterly — written by Croker— was anxiously awaited by Lingard; but he declined all invitations to write one himself, although he felt, as h§ wrote to Walker, that reviewers should, like himself, " be intimately acquainted with his authorities, which are quoted in heaps and seldom bear him out fully in his representations: " For me to review him is out of the question. We are rivals as it were. It would be the ' pot calling the kettle black.' Occasionally I introduce passages, in- directly but not openly, designed to refute him. But I am tired of it. I find that insensibly I imitate him. I throw off the historian and become the essayist." When Walker had read Macaulay's first volume, Lingard vnrote to him to " reserve his indignation for * Obadiah Walker (1616-1699), Master of University College, Oxford; declared himself a Catholic on the accession of James II. The tract in ques- tion was an Animadversion upon the Reply of Dr. H. Aldrich to the Dis- course of Abraham Woodhead concerning the Adoration of Our Blessed Saviour in the Eucharist. Oxford : 1688. THE RAMBLER 345 the second," where the author shows himself the most " factless " writer Lingard has ever read. The effect of the perusal of the second volume upon Mr. Walker may be guessed from his old friend's warning, " You will soon be actually mad, if you do not moderate your wrath against Macaulay. That he deserves all you say of him is true." With regard to a review of the work in the Rambler, the organ of the Oxford converts,* in which Macaulay was praised for his industry in con- sulting documents, and asserting nothing but upon, good authority, Lingard pertinently asks : " Did the Rambler ever examine and weigh these authorities? Does he know anything of them besides the names at the foot of the page? I can tell him that generally among them is one or two that are not deserv- ing of the least notice, mere libels published on broad- sheets, as was the custom then, and now mentioned as authority, because he had no other for something that he had introduced into his own narrative. It is plain throughout that he has a marked antipathy to James, and every one who possessed the confidence of James : they are all the strangest, maddest, unfeeling beings that ever existed, and yet Rambler remarks, p. 430, that Macaulay 's view of James's mind and principles bears at least this mark of truth, ' that from the beginning to the end it is thoroughly consistent with itself.' That is, it has the mark of truth that it begins with a falsehood, and is careful never afterwards to contradict that false- hood." In answer to an inquiry of Walker's, Lingard wrote (7th March, 1 849) : " You ask . . . what authority had Macaulay to say that the use of the thumbscrew had given Perth a title * The Rambler, edited by Richard Simpson, a convert, who was after- wards associated with Lord Acton, was a weekly and subsequently a monthly paper, and ran from January, 1845 to 1859. 346 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD to the royal favour, or that the boot was a favourite in- strument of torture with James. — He had none whatever. It is mere romance." In a later letter (6th March, 1850) Lingard re- marks : " Macaulay seems animated with the most diabolical hatred of the Earl of Perth, who was in my opinion a real saint. . . . There is scarcely a line in that note which is not meant to contradict Macaulay's statement. Even the dates, for he is perpetually wrong even in dates." Having happened on one occasion to quote Macau- lay, we find the following amusing letter from Lingard to his publisher's literary manager, Edward Price (May 8th, 1849): I send the papers back. Why did I send for them? Because I had introduced something from Macaulay. 'Afterwards my conscience smote me, that he had perhaps written from imagination. Now I am sure so. For Clarendon, who was present all the while and wrote the same evening all he could remember, says nothing about it. What a figure should I have cut, if any one after- wards should have detected me writing on the authority of Macaulay? P.S. Last Sunday was the anniversary — the fifty-fourth anniversary — of my ordination as priest: the 13th Sep- tember will be the thirty-eighth of my taking possession of this place." CHAPTER XVI AS time had progressed, working its own appease- IX. ments, Lingard, in issuing edition after edition of his works, had ventured to speak more plainly and with less disguise, as we see by a letter addressed to Edward Price (13th February, 1847): " I see that you quote my quarto edition [of History of England]. I am sorry. That was the first edition. I had then to acquire credit among protestants, and was therefore extremely cautious — and I believe in that respect successful; for I was held by many to be a moderate, perhaps impartial writer; this made me bolder in the duodecimo edition, in which I introduced much respecting the penal laws which I had withheld in the former." Modest as he was, Lingard yet had the happy con- viction, as his life was drawing, to its close, that he had not failed in the object he had had so steadily before him in his literary labours. Within a year of his death we find the expression of this belief in a letter to Walker (22nd July, 1850): " You must know that I have long had the notion — a very presumptuous one, probably— that the revolution in the protestant mind as to the doctrines of popery was owing to my history. Young and inquisitive minds in the Universities were induced to examine my authorities con- tradicting their favourite religious opinions; and finding me correct, began to doubt of their previous convictions and so forth. This is very presumptuous in me, still I have little doubt of my having been the original cause of the new feeling created in the Universities on that head." 347 348 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD While the edition was going through the press, Lingard's letters to Edward Price make delightful read^ ing. " Fearing that you may be troubled with re- peated visits from the Devil," he wrote in February, 1848, " I have thought it best to send you at once a shilling's worth of copy." "Remember that if you kill me," he wrote a year later in reply to a request for more copy, " you will be delayed more than if you let me have my own way." " Mr. Dolman very prob- ably may be afraid," he wrote the following summer, " that I may drop before all is finished, and I must acknowledge that for the last six months I have been severely handled by the influenza and its consequences." Again at the end of the year he complains: "For years you have crept on at a snail's pace; now you rush forward at railway speed. Why was Mr. Dolman so slow before, or why so hasty now?i" The question of a preface that would please his publisher and attract the public, while not offending his own modesty, is discussed in several letters to John Walker. He relied much upon the learned help prof- fered by this faithful friend and disciple, who may almost be said to have inspired the greater part of the preface, which Ling'ard feared would not satisfy his publisher. He wrote to Edward Price: " There, I shall disappoint Mr. Dolman. He is too fond of puffing. He wants a preface to act as a puffing advertisement. I think such things disadvantageous in the long run. People are too discerning now not to see the object, and on that account to think contemptuously of the work. However, when the time comes I will do tny best. Though I must own that on several occasions lately when I have begun to work, I have come to the conclusion that my working days are over." The question continued to trouble him; he con- HIC CESrUS ARTEMQUE REPONO 349 templated it, as he wrote to Walker, " with painful! feelings," and he wrote again to Price: " I shall be sorry to disappoint Mr. Dolman. He will want a smart, spirited, aye, and boastful article. But non sum qualis eram! I feel that I am worked out. The brain has been taxed too severely. One hour's application is now followed by exhaustion during the rest of the day. . . . Besides, I do not like to boast; it seems beneath one." The preface got written before the end of the year, and Lingard was able to inform his old friend Dr. Tate (31st December, 1849): " At last Dolman capitulated. . . . He agreed with me to be content with a short preface; and that I should take the blame of the delay on myself and my infirmities. I accordingly was obliged to buckle to, and make as much as I could of my former sketches. ... So he got from me a preface of nineteen pages; and I have taken my leave to the public. Hie cestus artemque repono. It is all finished: and, according to his last letter, it will be published to the trade to-day." Mr. Dolman's capitulation was all the more ready, as Lingard was informed by Mr. Darcy Talbot, that he had found a much greater number of subscribers for the book than he expected. Lingard wrote to Walker: " Talbot adds that it is the opinion of many there, [in London] that my history had no small share in creating in the universities the spirit of enquiry into Catholic matters, which has led by degrees to the conversion of so many collegians. This, if it be true, is very gratifying." Lingard had waited to see the Quarterly Review, with its severe but admirably written criticism of Ma- caulay, before sending his James II to the printer. 350 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD The whig paper, the Morning Chronicle, having taken up Macaulay's defence, Lingard observed to Walker: " This is as you prophesied. Let the two parties squabble; the result will be the vindication of James. It will cover with confusion the pretended critic in the Rambler, who evidently knew no more about the subject than this pen." After informing Walker that he had insisted on having the vfords " foremost of living historians " ex- punged from Dolman's prospectus, as it was " too much to suffer " in a prospectus which would prob- ably be attributed to himself, Lingard adds : " I am chiefly displeased with the new portrait [by Skaife]. It is much better, or rather less unlike, than that by Lover [Ramsay] in the duodecimo. But the portrait from Lonsdale's painting is the only one that was ever published very like me." The laborious three years' task was ended, and the Literary Gazette of 5th January, 1850, announced the issue of the new edition of the well-known History by Dr. Lingard "at the age of seventy-nine." The various editions had brought him approximately the sum of £8000 to £9000. If Lingard resented and refuted the misrepresenta- tions and inaccuracies of his natural opponents, he was incensed by those committed by certain writers of his own creed — ^by pious enthusiasts who were apt, as he wrote to Husenbeth (19th March, 1849), "to form a notion of the design of providence first, and then press every event into the accomplishment of that design." A series of articles in the Rambler on St. Philip Neri he calls romances, and draws attention to a passage on page 409: "God raised up the saints Ignatius and Philip Neri to reform the catholic world, Ignatius to THE NEW CATHOLICS 351 reform the catholic intellect, Philip to reform the catholic heart:'*' "Then notice this passage: 'the Jesuits were courting martyrdom in Ireland and Japan.' Does not this intimate that Jesuits suffered martyrdom in Ireland at that period? But what was the case? St. Ignatius sent three Jesuits to Ireland: they arrived, stayed there thirty-four days, and then ran away, without his permission and without the crown of martyrdom, though Henry VIII was ready to favour them with it if he could have caught them." In a letter to Walker, Lingard terms the articles " a splendid account of the Jesuits mixed up with the history of St. Philip . . . and calculated to deceive the reader. . . . Would it not have been more con- sistent with truth to have said " running away from martyrdom in Ireland '?" Somie of the convert writers retained, perhaps imconsciously, many of their old no- tions. Lingard points out to Edward Price, who was also editor of DolmarCs Magazine, that one of his corre- spondents had called Hooker "the divine Hooker ": " I imagine the article is by one of the late converts, and slipt from his pen because he had for years been accustomed to apply that epithet to Hooker. There are many little things to be noticed in the writings of these new catholics which appear rather novel to catholics of the old school. Though they seem to know everything, there is much ignorance among them on many subjects connected with religion in former days." A graver error is then noticed — ^the scandalous ad- missions in those articles on St. Philip Neri respecting the depravity of the popes and the Romans, related with good faith by the writers, " who carry with them to the task," wrote Lingard, " all the misrepresenta- * The " Modern Saints" series of articles in the Rambler began in 1847 with a preface by Father Faber. "St. Philip Neri " appeared in five articles, from September, 1848, to March, 1849. 352 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD tions which they had collected while they were pro- testants." "Like all good protestants they believe in all the forgeries about Caesar Borgia, the pope of that family [Alexander VI], his daughter Lucretia, etc. etc." "It is plain to me," he wrote a few months later to Walker, " that they still retain the belief in the horrid impurities attributed to his Court in the spurious diary of Burchaud, which notion they imbibed when protestants. Why so often talk in this manner? Alexander was bad enough in favour of his natural children, but it requires protestant prejudice and credulity to give credit to the spurious Burchaud." There was at the same time a tendency among some of the Oxford converts to look upon the old Catholic clergy "as ignoramuses." Walker having written something in rebuke, his old friend wrote to tell him he was glad. " Their boasted proficiency in Greek is confined to one single branch of Greek learning [the playwrights], and a useless branch too. ... As Latin scholars many of them are beneath contempt. ' In paginibus nostris ' writes, or wrote old Kipling [Dean of Peterborough] ; equal solecisms occur in the preface of one of them lately, to an edition of the Sarum breviary." It is hardly necessary to say that above all things Lin- gar d deprecated exaggeration in controversy. " Don't be afraid of lashing the Exeter Hall fanatics," he wrote to Tierney : " I hope, however, that the converts who write on the universities will not exaggerate. All the good that they may do by their narrative is at once done away, by the answer to them that they exaggerate. This is what I am told by my protestant acquaintances from the universi- ties. I cannot deny it: but I hope that they (the con- ENGLISHMEN AND ROMANS 353 verts) will not give them any opportunity of proving their assertions." / As we have seen, Lingard was opposed to the adop- tion of the Roman collar, or that anything distinctive should be insisted upon, as he wo-ote to Tierney in 1847, "to cause you to be followed by boys calling out, 'there goes a popish priest.' " When, therefore, two years later he heard that the Oratorians were being pelted in the London streets, he wrote to Walker: " If the mob pelt the Oratorians, it must be because they wear their habit in public. If so, they must pay the penalty of setting good sense at defiance, to act in public in London as might be done with impunity in Rome.* Let them wear their habit in the house, but not out of doors. It must do harm; it must prejudice the catholic cause in the eyes of educated men." To try and transform " Englishmen into Romans " was, in Lingard's opinion, as undesirable as it was im- practicable ; and he expressed the devout wish, in a letter to the same correspondent (February, 1850), that the subject for discussion at Dr. Wiseman's soirees might be " How to send away those swarms of Italian congregationists who introduce their own customs here, and by making religion ridiculous in the eyes of pro- testants prevent it from spreading here." Walker's reply elicited the following: " That there may be need of reform among us in many points I concede; but that reform should be based not upon national custom's among the Romans or Italians, but on those among Englishmen. Lights and serenading, etc., are to foreigners in Italy the most natural manner of shewing respect; not so with us. Our great object should be to extend the catholic religion among us, and for that purpose I hold it necessary to make converts * The London Oratory, of which Father Faber was superior, was estab- lished in 1849 in King William Street, Strand. 354 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD among the higher of [and ?] the middle classes of society . . . men will seldom be persuaded to join a society of religionists, who do not number among them a single person of any respectability in the whole district. If this be the case, we are bound in conscience to elim- inate everything unnecessary that is calculated to indispose such persons from joining us, or to augment their anti- pathy to us." Walker apparently replied by drawing attention to the number of distinguished persons who had been brought into the Church, and were much attached to " Newmanistic doctrines," but Lingard was not to be shaken in his opinion that they were few, in comparison with the number they had had the right to expect at the time of emancipation. " We ought then to have relaxed something of our rigidity, and adapted our policy to the state of the times, and then I am con- vinced for one we should have had twenty." Dr. Walsh, vicar-apostolic of the London District died in January, 1849, and was succeeded by his coadjutor. Dr. Wiseman. " So Dr. Walsh is dgadl' Now for Dr. Wiseman," wrrote Lingard to Walker. " Advise him to cultivate the friendship of his clergy. I fear he will become too great a man." Walker was on intimate terms with Dr. Wiseman, and there are many interesting pieces of advice conveyed through him from Lingard to the future cardinal. Towards the end of the year, he sought to dissuade him from starting a newspaper, writing to Walker to send the bishop the following passage as his opinion: " I do not much like the newspaper project. It will make the Bishop a political partisan — and one of that party which is not in favour with the present administra- tion.* Would they permit him to become archbishop? * The whig ministry of Lord John Russell. The Weekly Register paper was started in August, 1849. DR. WISEMAN'S ACTIVITY 355 I think they would remonstrate strongly, and employ all their influence in Rome against his employment. I don't wish to be a juavTis kokcuv, but I should not be sur- prised if the archiepiscopal mitre, in that case, were to find itself on the temples of Dr. Ullathorne.* If you say anything more, say it as from yourself." " How many lies and defamatory paragraphs will he have to answer for?" he wrote to Walker a few days later. " I don't like it at all. He must have plenty to do without meddling in secular matters in such manner." Neither did Lingard like Dr. Wise- man's soirees. "There seems to be a wish to trans- form us into Romans," he wrote on receiving some papers from Walker concerning them, " though man- ners and circumstances are so different." Dr. Wise- man's immense activity and incessant public appear- ances gave rise, towards the middle of the year 1850, to rumours of an over-excited brain, of incipient in- sanity. Lingard wrote to Walker, as soon as the report had reached his ears, charging him to advise Dr. Wise- man not to undertake so much: "Not to interfere in matters that do not imperiously require his interference: that he has more to do than the bodily and mental faculties of any one man are equal to, etc.; that he has enemies ready to catch at every word and action, and misrepresent them at Rome, etc. With- draw him, if possible, from that state of excitement which he must constantly be in, by seeming to wish the world to look upon him, as the only man in the catholic body calculated to do anything. II reprisente trop." Though Lingard was made anxious by what he con- sidered were errors of judgment in the man, whose * William Ullathorne (1806-1889), archbishop. He was vicar-general to Bishop Morris in the Australasian mission, and H. M. Catholic chaplain in 1832 ; vicar-apostolic of the Western District in 1845, and on the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850, first Bishop of Birmingham. He was made Arch- bishop of Cabasa in partibus in i888. 356 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD career from boyhood he had watched with affection and admiration, his esteem for his great qualities re- mained unchanged. " It seems that Wiseman is to he archbishop," he had written in 1847. " I am glad. He will in that office be more respected than any one of the other bishops. I mean his talents and reputa- tion will weigh with the public." So it remained to the end. John Coulston, in announcing Lingard's death to the cardinal, wrote: " Few knew Dr. Lingard's private sentiments better than myself. Nearly thirty years ago he had formed the highest opinion of your character and talents, and has often spoken of you to me in the most flattering terms." Lingard — now in his eightieth year — was wont to describe himself as a " feeble old fellow " good for nothing — ^as John " sans een, sans intellect, sans every- thing "—as the " old fool of Hornby " whose memory betrayed him at every turn, yet we have striking in- stances of the indomitable energy of memory and intel- lect to the very end of his life. The detection of two misprints — ^the changing of the spelling of cestus into ccBstus in the preface of his History, and a mistrans- lation of a passaige in Strabo " so enraged " him, as he wrote to Walker, that he spent two days in ruiming from house to house, borrowing dictionaries and Virgils, to see if any good authority could be found for ccestus, until he was pacified by finding it in Adam's dictionary. We can gather Walker's comments on his old friend's energy from Lingard's reply (14th January, 1850): " Much you know about my health. Because I put my- self into a passion I must be well. No: not till I am laid in my grave. But it was necessary to stir my stumps, for THE GORHAM CASE 357 the loss of a couple of days would have made it too late for remedy." A few months later, when the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had reversed the judgment of the Court of Arches in the Gorham case, and had, in Lingard's words, " affirmed that both the advocates and opponents of baptismal regeneration might continue to minister in the Chturch of England without being deemed separate from it," Dr. Wiseman and Dr. Ulla- thorne both published articles upon the subject, which was exciting intense interest in the religious world.* They both made the same mistake, which was in- stantly detected by Lingard, and pointed out to them with the greatest modesty and candour by the old his- torian. They had both overlooked, in quoting from the Act of 1st Elizabeth, a most important proviso taking from the tribunal " all power of declaring any doctrine heretical unless it have been so declared by express words of Scripture, etc., and hereafter (a most important word) unless it shall have been declared heresy by authority of the High Court of Parliament with the assent of the clergy of this realm in their convocation." As it was on this proviso that an lurgent call was being made for the judgment of convocation, Lingard feared, as he wrote to the two prelates, that the origina- tors and approvers of that call, might accuse them of Jesuitry, and might contend that if they had meant to treat the matter fairly they should not have suppressed all notice of the proviso. The fact that it came at * George Cornelius Gorham (1787-1857), divine and antiquary. The dis- pute between Gorham and Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, lasted two and a half years before the former was instituted Vicar of Brampton Speke, near Exeter. The excitement caused by the case may be judged from the fact that more than fifty works were published on the subject. The doctrinal question originally raised was after all left unsettled. 358 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD the end (No. XX) of a very long act, was doubtless the reason, he wrote, of their oversight. He begins both letters with compliments on the admirable lectm-es " which were bought up at Lan- caster immediately, and mostly by protestants." And at the same time he wrote to Walker: " Perhaps he [Wiseman] is already aware of all this. Perhaps not. If I were he, I should be glad to be ap- prised of the mistake. . . . How he may like it, I sup- pose that I shall hear. I apologise for my impertinence on account of my anxiety that he might anticipate the strictures of his opponents, I did not so much as hint how he might meet them, that would have been impudent and obtrusive, and therefore confined myself to the mere fact of the omis- sion." Dr. Wiseman's answer is described five days later (April 8th, 1850) as "a very kind answer, kinder than my letter deserved." It moreover expressed the writer's desire to consult Dr. Lingard, and to take an opportunity of making a descent upon him. " Now do you," Lingard charges Walker, " prudently dissuade him from all this. ... I am not fit for any business. . . . Let me vegetate my time out, which cannot be very long; and yet I cling to a hope that the return of mild and settled weather may reanimate me. But I suppose it is so with us all." Later in the year his apprehensions of a descent upon him were renewed. He wrote to Walker : " Dr. Wiseman is to preach in Manchester on the 28th [July]. Why so? Has he not enough to do in the London district? He takes too much upon himself, which must keep him in a state of constant excitement. Then he thinks of running over to see me afterwards : but you have written and will prevent it: many thanks; but, like all old ACTS OF KINDNESS 359 men, I shall not be sure till I know that you have suc- ceeded." The threatened visit did not take place, and Lingard wrote to express his grateful thanks to Walker Ifor having prevented it. For all his painful infirmities and miseries, the spirit; of fun remained unquenched in Lingard to the end : his advice was asked on every conceivable subject; in fact, the answering of letters in his later years took up the greater part of his time. A lady having consulted him about money matters, he ends a long and detailed ac- count of an investment, with the information that it would produce £200 per annum "for 990 years, as long, probably, as she would live." No amount of time and labour would he spare in doing acts of kind- ness, as is proved by the long and frequent letters still existing, on the subject of finding a housekeeper's place for a worthy woman afflicted with a drunken husband — the saving of another poor woman's little investment — or, again, the search of a post as governess, and the sending to France of a convert lady in poor and dis- tressful circumstances. His was a spirit without guile, prone to turn all things " to favour and to prettiness." Writing of the burial of one of his friends, we find the following in a letter to Walker : " You should have imitated the Christians of old. Pru- dentius, having prayed to Christ to take the soul of the deceased to heaven, proceeds to say what they would do with his body — Nos tecta fovebimus ossa Violis et fronde frequenti, Titulumque et frigida saxa Liquido spargemus odore. Is it not pretty?" 36o LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD How little he allowed old offences to rankle in his mind we may gather from his remark, on learning that Dr. Wiseman had asked Husenbeth to write a life of Dr. Milner, and that the latter had replied that it was " periculosce plenum opus alece," that he could not do it without offending many persons who had quarrelled with Milner. " He is wise, I think," wrote Lingard. " Many have such exaggerated notions of Dr. Milner, that he could never satisfy them, and many have such reasons for blaming Dr. Milner, that even moderate praise would displease them."* Few among those accustomed to sing that well- known and well-loved hymn, " Hail, Queen of Heaven," are aware that it is Lingard 's adaptation of the Ave Maris Stella. He had contributed it to the Catholic Magazine (VI, 607) in 1834, when congregational singing had hardly yet penetrated into usage. It had been set to music — ^but never to his liking — several times when he wrote to Walker (13th June, 1850): " You talk of the people singing with gusto my Ave Maris Stella. Let me know whose the music is. It has been set to music by several persons; and to me such music as I have seen, appeared too complex and intricate to be a favourite with the common people. They would like, I should think, a more simple harmony. Tell me whose the music is, that I may get it." Dr. Wiseman went to Rome in August, 1850. Lin- gard's prognostications were usually so accurate, that it is as interesting as it is unusual to find him in the wrong. After asking, in a letter to Walker (6th August), " The cardinalate?. Does it await him in Rome?" he goes on: * The Life of Dr. Milner was written in terms of unqualified eulogy by Husenbeth in 1862. "ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER" 361 " If so, I will foretell that he will never return. The cardinals will fear that the dignity of their estate will be treated with disgrace in England: and the ministry will never dare to consent that a cardinal should beard the protestant Bishop of London to his face, by residing in London itself." As for the title of Archbishop of Westminster, Lin- gard had been opposed to it from the moment of its first suggestion three years previously. " I always thought it ridiculous myself," he wrote to Walker (20th July, 1847), "because Westminster was a bishopric created by Henry VIII, and to make it an archbishopric for catholics would be strange." And in the above letter of August, 1850, he repeats that the title " will not do, but will elicit new laws and restrictions against us." He follows with a suggestion which would " give no offence, introduce no novelty," viz. that of " St. Georgii in Pratis " — ^the new cathedral, Pugin's master- piece, of St. George-in-the-Fields, Southwark. By a Propaganda decree of 2 1 st September, 1850, Dr. Wiseman was translated to the new archdiocese of Westminster, and in a consistory held on the 3rd October, Pope Pius IX made him cardinal, with the title of Sta. Pudentiana. Four days later the new cardinal-archbishop published his famous pastoral, dated "Outside the Flaminian Gate"; and then was it proved how much more accurately Lingard had gauged the sentiments and judged the disposition of his countrymen towards the old religion, than had Wiseman — with his ten years' episcopal experience' — or the distinguished band of Tractarian converts, who represented nothing more than the travail of their own minds and that of a portion of their congregations: who were in no real touch with the great mass of English Protestantism, a contention which Lingard had 362 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD emphatically proclaimed since the beginning of the Oxford Movement. The storm was sudden and widespread: a memorial from the Protestant clergy of Westminster to Lingard's old friend Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, and his answer to them, were followed by Lord John Russell's famous " Durham Letter," addressed to the bishop of that see on the 4th November, in which he severely censured not only the papal aggression and the " mum- meries of superstition," but also the proceedings of the Tractarian clergy of the Church of England. The agitation throughout the country expressed itself in addresses, to the number of 6700, voted before the end of December by nearly as many meetings, calling upon Queen Victoria to resist the usurpation. Watching the course of events, Lingard nevertheless came to the conclusion that the storm would blow over without causing irretrievable damage. He wrote to Dr. Tate, on the 28th December, that it was a pity the Pope's brief had found its way into the papers, but that he did not expect the Whigs would call upon parliament for any new law. Although the " Ecclesi- astical Titles " bill was voted a few weeks after Lin- gard's death, the fact that it remained a dead letter on the statute book went far to justify his previsions. Cardinal Wiseman's learned and tactful " Appeal," preached in St. George's Cathedral on the 17th March, 185 I, helped to allay the excitement, and procured for him the serious attention of thinking people. He had previously published three lectures on the Catholic Hierarchy, which he sent to Lingard with a kind note in his own hand. Writing to thank him (20th De- cember, 1850), Lingard expressed his satisfaction: " Every one tells me that the vacarme, which had been excited against us, has nearly been set at rest, and LAST LETTER TO WALKER 363 that owing to your Grace's admirable lectures, which are admitted to be unanswerable by many of our very foes. That the Almighty may long preserve you to finish nobly the great work which you have hitherto carried into execution so successfully, is the fervent prayer of your Eminence's devoted servant and admirer, John Lingard." For some time Lingard had been compelled to use the services of an amanuensis — Miss Mary Croft — though he had stoutly rejected Walker's suggestion that he should save his fast-waning eyesight by getting a boy to read to him: " I will have no boy to read to me. He would be an incumbrance." But at the beginning of the year 1850 he reluctantly came to the conclusion, that he must have a curate before that time next year. " I dread to think of it. How am I to dispose of him?" he wrrote pathetically to Walker. " I have not room for one in this house, nor if I had would I have him here. I could not in my state bear to be troubled with one. . . . The very thought of this makes me sick. Something certainly must be done in that way, or I must remove myself to some other place, unless death remove me." " I am glad," he wrote a few days later, " that you approve of my idea of a curate. But it is not so feasible a thing as you imagine. ... I see a thou- sand difficulties while you see none." The curate, Mr. Walmsley, was found an,d appointed only a few months before Lingard's death. In September, 1850, Lingard wrote his last letter in his own hand of the hundreds — ^hardly one of which did not contain something of lasting interest — to his friend John Walker ; and it seems fitting that it should have been on the subject which always lay so near his heart, the prosperity of Ushaw College: 364 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD " Tell me about the dedication or consecration. . . . How did you find my window? Tell me all. All from that quarter is interesting to me. I am glad that you don't care for my figure, but only for my name. If I put the figure 5 after it, I shall do great things. For I am next to a pauper at present, and shall continue so, unless we have better times for railways. I have not paid for my window as I meant; nor can I, for I am in debt to the bank at Lancaster. You have no conception how all in Lancashire are pauperized. There is hardly a rich man in Liverpool who has not dis- charged the greater part of his servants. . . ." The same letter contains an allusion to what must have been Lingard's last literary work. Carlyle's Latter Day ' Pamphlets had just been published — ^the most vehement and occasionally savage assertions of his principles. They gave great offence, and among those who prepared to criticise them was the veteran Dr. Lingard. At the end of the above letter he wrote: " I meant to send you my attack on Carlyle, or the sum of it, but I have not time to-day." Unfortunately no trace or sketch of this article can be found among Lingard's papers. Meanwhile, as the last scenes of his life were closing in, the reverence and' affection with which he was regarded became deeper and more intense, and all men— the Cardinal, the Jesuits, his Protestant neigh- bours, and more distant admirers^seemed to vie in seeking to find expression for their esteem. The general of the Jesuits, Father Rootham, on learning from the Rev. Mr. Larkin, S.J.— who had spent some time with Lingard at Hornby— that the old man had complained of the difficulties in saying Mass from the asthma which continually troubled him, presented a petition in his name to the Pope, with the result that Pius IX sent him an induli, granting permission to DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 365 say Mass, though in the course of the morning he had previously taken a pill by way of medicine, and other matters to aid in swallowing, it. Lingard, who expected nothing of the kind, was pro- foundly astonished. " How I stared," he wrote to Walker (20th August, 1850), "I never expected any such thing, nor shall I make use of it: for Larkin drew the petition in my name, which he has sent me, with exaggerations in plenty; I should scruple to take any benefit by it." In a postscript to the above letter he adds: "To- morrow, the Archasological Association has a field day from Manchester to Hornby. Shall I lie in bed all day? Some of them will assuredly call to see that antique piece of goods called J. L." Lingard did not lie in bed all day. He had been appointed a vice- president of the Association, only accepting on the condition that it should be a sinecure ; and several of the chief members broke in upon him " by shere force " and made him pretty speeches — ^which he did not hear. " Among them," he wrote a few days later, " were Jerdan of the Literary Gazette* and Thomas Wright.t " Wright said that he and I had sometimes differed, but like gentlemen, and no angry feeling had ever existed between us. . . . But the great man was Pettigrew.J In a word, it all passed off pretty well." * William Jerdan (i 782-1869), journalist. He was for thirty-three years editor of the Literary Gazette. From 1820 to 1830 its position in the literary world was supreme. It declined afterwards, and Jerdan severed his connec- tion with it in December, 1850. •f Thomas Wright (1810-1877), antiquary. He was one of the founders of the British Archaeological Association in 1843, and the author of numerous valuable works. t Thomas Pettigrew (1791-1865), surgeon and antiquary. In 1827 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and took a leading part in the Archaeological Association. He wrote many medical works, and a life of Lord Nelson, published in 1849. 366 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD As Lingard's last letter to Walker had had Ushaw College for its chief subject, so one of the last letters he ever wrote, addressed to the Rev. Thomas Sher- burne, of the Willows, Kirkham, and dated February, 185 1, was on Ushaw business— some question which had arisen between Bishop Brown and the college— a last service to the place he had helped to found, and where his mortal remains were soon to rest. On Easter Sunday he walked for the last time in his garden, and, as if seized with a sudden presenti- ment, he turned to the friend who was with him, and insisted upon his then taking with him some young oak trees, which he had raised from the acorns of a favourite tree which he had brought from Italy — from the shores of Lake Trasymene in the year 1825 — and which were to be planted as memorials of him.* The next day he became seriously ill and took to his bed. John Walker — now Canon Walker — went to London in the spring to stay with Cardinal Wiseman, and to see the Great Exhibition; and three or four letters from him, describing events which interested him in London, remain among Lingard's papers. From him the Cardinal probably learned the precarious state of their old friend's health, and he obtained an indutt from Pope Pius IX, conveying the papal blessing and * The tree, a fine red oak, is still known as " Lingard's oak," and he gave its history as follows : — Quam cernis ex adverse quercum, Insueto foliorum vestitu et cortice subereo conspicuam Olim fuit glandula, e saitu Trasymene efifessa Atque ilia ipsa ex ripa ubi infelici Romanis marte Pugnatum est inter duces Annibalem Poenum et Caium Flaminium consulem. Quae in Borealem hanc insulam allata est solo sata Hornbeio Anna MDCCCXXV. Grandem hanc crevit in aborem, A proavis suis quercubus Italo sub sole natis Fronde, mole, proceritate, haud degenerem. INDULT FROM PIUS IX 367 plenary indulgence in articulo mortis, which he sent to Lingard early in May. John Coulston, his old friend and banker, went to see him on the 6th May, and at Lingard's request wrote the same day to the Cardinal: " As soon as I had seated myself at his bedside, the good old man, with tears in his eyes, placed in my hands your kind letter to him, dated yesterday, with which he seemed quite delighted. He made me read it aloud, and kept exclaiming, ' He is very good,' ' it is very kind of him,' etc. ... I am afraid he is not likely to remain with us long. His medical man [Dr. Johnson, of Lan- caster] has a very unfavourable opinion of his case. . . . But he suffers little or no pain, and is quite cheerful. . . . He is universally beloved in his own neighbourhood, and it is quite affecting to witness the solicitude shown by protestants as well as catholics for his recovery." Canon Walker hastened to Hornby at the end of of June, and remained with his old friend until the end. One of Lingard's most devoted friends, and his correspondent for more than twenty years was a con- vert lady, Mrs. Thomas Lomax, of Allsprings, Great Harwood, near Blackburn. She carefully preserved all his letters to her, and before her death sent] them to Cardinal Wiseman. All trace of them has un- fortunately been lost, and only a few of her own letters concerning him seem to have been preserved. They are quoted by Tierney in his Memoir, and the following, written on the 27th June, 1851, was prob- ably addressed to him: " Dr. Lingard's mind was more alive to a joke, and could follow out a conversation better yesterday than on the Friday previous : but what a comparison is that I Could we compare it with any Friday in last year, some- thing might be said." 368 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD For the last fortnigiht of his life, owing to his asthma, Lingard was not able to retire to bed, and lay day and night on the sofa in his library, surrounded by his books. There Mr. and Mrs. Murray saw him at lo o'clock in the evening of the 17th July; he was unable to speak as he smiled with the usual bright twinkle in his eye, and took Mr. Murray by both hands. Two hours later, just before the clock in the " Stanley Tower " of the parish church struck the hour of mid- night, he calmly expired, conscious to the last, in presence of Jolm Walker, of his attendants, and his curate, Mr. Walmsley, having lived eighty years and five months. John Coulston, in announcing his death the same day to Cardinal Wiseman, wrote : " He was conscious to the last, and died without a struggle." By his own express wish he was buried in the cloister of Ushaw College — on the 22nd July — and in as simple and quiet a manner as possible. His brethren, the secular clergy of Lancashire, set up a tablet to his memory in the little Hornby chapel, and his Protestant friends erected one in the Hornby parish church, with the following inscription: " In memory of John Lingard DD. the learned author of the History of England and of the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. He died at Hornby xviii July MDCCCLI Aged 82 [sic] and was buried at Ushaw College Durham. 'Quis desiderio sit — Modus tarn cari capitis?' This tablet is erected by his friends and associates." This appears to be the only instance in existence of a monument in a Protestant chxurch to a Catholic priest. Lingard, universally beloved, the man of many friends, had never been without a few detractors and calumniators ; writers who had aimed their stings there, A LAST CALUMNY 369 where they would hurt most painfully — his good faith and his orthodoxy. Following in the footsteps of Dr. Milner, of Padre Ventura, and of those who denounced him as' a Jansenist, the fact that he had not been able to lie in bed for the last few days of his life, was seized upon by some journalist, who wrote to several papers that he was " afraid to go to bed, because afraid to die." Dr. Christopher Johnson, his medical attendant, thereupon wrote to Dolman (21st July, 1851) a letter which appeared in the Illustrated London News, saying that he had been for some thirty years in the confidence of the venerated historian, as his medical adviser and friend : " I beg to state that he never manifested on any occa- sion whatever an unreasonable fear of any kind. He was, in my humble judgment, as wise and good a man, his mind as highly cultivated and as thoroughly disciplined, as is attainable in this life. During the whole of his last illness he was uniformly cheerful, tranquil, and resigned. Not a word or gesture betrayed complaint, impatience, or dread of any kind. My religious creed is different from his and yours, and I am personally unknown to you; but I know that you were esteemed by Dr. Lingard, and am sure you will take an interest in his posthumous character. You will use this note, or any part of it, with or with- out my name, as you think proper." It was hoped by Lingard's friends, as Coulston wrote to Cardinal Wiseman in announcing his death, that the Cardinal would undertake to write his biography; but that was not to be, and Tierney's short Memoir is the only record hitherto attempted of his long and useful life. Lingard may be looked upon as typical of all that was best among his colleagues and con- temporaries — ^the Catholic clergy of the old school, 3 B 370 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD whom Douay had reared and sent to England. He may have been equalled in learning by a few — in those leisurely days priests had more time and opportunity to become learned, — ^but he stood alone, not only as historian, but in the happy combination of gifts which specially fitted him for the task he had set before him. Such tact and reticence were surely never allied tO' more unflinching pm-pose, so much good-humour with so keen a wit in trenchant controversy. Attacked from within and without, by those among his own people who misunderstood and doufbted him, as by his natural foes outside, it is no light praise to be able to say of him, that his pen was never touched — from first to last — ^with the venom of bitterness. Cardinal Wiseman did not write his life, but in the DuhUn Review for September, 1853 (XXXV, 205), he spoke of Lingard in terms which fittingly summarise his life's work: "It is a Providence that, in history, we have given to the nation a writer like Lingard, whose gigantic merit will be better appreciated in each successive generation, as it sees his work standing calm and erect amidst the shoals of petty pretenders to usurp his station. When Hume shall have fairly taken his place among the classical writers of our tongue, and Macau- lay shall have been transferred to the shelves of roman- cers and poets, and each shall have received his true meed of praise, then Lingard will be still more con- spicuous, as the only impartial historian of our country. This is a mercy indeed, and rightful honour to him, who, at such a period of time, worked his way, not into a high rank, but to the very loftiest point of literary position." FINIS APPENDICES APPENDIX A In the year 1868 a short correspondence appeared in Notes and Queries respecting the name of Lingard. One writer suggested it might be of Grison origin, and called from the mountain, Linguard; or from the Saxon I'm, signifying " linen " or flax; and also " dead "; and there- fore Lingard might mean a " guard of linen," or a " guard of the dead," or sexton. In Lowland Scotch, the writer, who signs S. J., recalls the fact that tin is a pool or deep hole in a beck or river {vide Burns, Duncan Gray). Among several answers to this enquiry the most probable, and to which Lingard himself adhered, was that which derived the name from furze or ling. The North Wolds of Lincolnshire were covered, within the memory of men still living in 1855, with many a wide expanse of furze or ling, and the writer, Mr. Edmund Tew, of Arundel, after quoting Tierney's note to the same effect, continues: " In the Manipulus Vocabulorum, published by the Early English Text So- ciety, I find under words ending in eard this observation : " There be divers others ending in yerd, names of places where thyngs do grow, or are kept, as these that folow — An Hopyard, ye Appleyard, the Fygyeard etc," Let it be granted then that yeard or yard may in composition become ard, and the thing is done. The name is given to a family from living in a locality famous for the growth of ling. I am here surrounded by woods abounding with birch, and consequently the name of Birch field is as common as blackberries. . . ." Another correspondent claims the name as "doubtless Danish: 371 372 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD linn, linen cloth, and guard, an enclosure; and Lingard would simply mean a bleach green." While yet another suggests the township of Lingarths, in Yorkshire, as " not unlikely to have originated the surname, a confusion be- tween d and th at the end of a word not being uncommon among the vulgar." (Notes and Queries, 4th Series, I, 195 seq.) APPENDIX B Memorial of English Catholics presented to Mr. Pitt, drawn up loth February, 1788. ". . . Your memorialists are deprived of many of the rights of English subjects, and the common rights of mankind. They are prohibited, under the most severe penalties, from exercising any act of religion according to their own mode of worship : They are subject to heavy punishments for keeping schools, for educating their chil- dren in their own religious principles at home; and they are also subject to heavy punishment for sending their children for education abroad : They are made incapable of serving in His Majesty's armies and navies : They are restrained from practising the law as barris- ters, advocates, solicitors, attorneys, or proctors : They are obliged, on every occasion, to expose the most secret transactions of their families, by reason of the expensive and perplexing obligation of enrolling their deeds : They are subject, by annual acts of the legislature, to the ignominious fine of the double land-tax: They are deprived of that constitutional right of Eng- lish free-holders, voting for county members: They are not allowed to vote at the election of any other member: — they are therefore absolutely unrepresented in parliament: APPENDIX B 2>Ti They are excluded from all places civil and military : They are disqualified from being chosen to a seat in the House of Commons: Their peers are deprived of their hereditary seat in parliament; and their clergy, for exercising their func- tions, are exposed to the heaviest penalties and punish- ments, and, in some cases, to death: That the laws, which subject them to these disabilities, penalties and punishments, were passed against them in times of intolerance, for crimes of which they were not guilty, and for principles which they do not profess. , . ." After expressions of gratitude for the Relief Act of 1780, of unreserved allegiance and fidelity to the King's person and government, and a declaration that the Eng- lish Catholics have universally taken the oath of alle- giance,* the memorial sets forth their blameless and inoffensive lives, and continues : " That the British government and the nation at large have long been sensible of this, and therefore (with an humanity for which the English Catholics are truly grate- ful) have not permitted the laws against them to be executed to their utmost extent : Hence, for a considerable time, none of the laws which affect their lives have been carried into execution, and there have not been many instances where those laws, which affect their fortunes, have been enforced. Prosecu- tions against them have received no aid from the legisla- ture, no countenance from the magistrates, and no favour from the people. Informers against them have been universally despised; the most virtuous and enlightened men of the age have been their advocates; the nation their friend; — the letter of the law their only enemy. To this it is owing that they languish under disabilities which cramp their industry, prevent their providing for their families, drive them from their own country for education, obtrude them on foreigners for subsistence, and make them, as it were, aliens among their fellow-subjects ; * The Oath of 1778. 374 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD That the doctrine of general toleration universally pre- vails: And that no plea can be urged for tolerating, in foreign countries, the dissenters from the mode of worship established there, which may not, with as great propriety, be urged for tolerating in England those of the Catholic persuasion. . . ." (Charles Butler's Historical Memoirs, Vol. IV, pp. 6- ID.) APPENDIX C Bishop Challoner, although at first averse to any action which might provoke public opinion, upon maturer con- sideration drew up a petition in his own hand, of which the memorandum still exists in the Westminster Archives. Far from showing the timidity complained of by Sir John Dalrymple, the aged prelate went further than anything which Bishop Hay had proposed. In one particular — the question of the Marriage Act — he touched on a griev- ance which the laymen had overlooked: " What the Catholics of England humbly petition for at this juncture — First, that they may be allowed by Act of Parliament full liberty of conscience for the private exercise of their religion. Secondly, that all the Penal laws enacted against them may be repealed. And, with them, the Act of giving up their estates to the next Protestant heir. Thirdly, that the Test Act under Charles II, or any other requiring of them any oath contrary to the tenets of their religion, should also be repealed. And fourthly, with regard to the Marriage Act, by which they think themselves aggrieved by being obliged to receive the nuptial benediction from a minister who is of another communion, they humbly crave that they may be exempted from this obligation. APPENDIX D 375 Thus far had I written, when I was honoured by a visit from Lord Stourton, who objects against our sueing for a repeal of all the penal statutes, which he thinks will not be obtained; and will appear an exorbitant demand. But, after hearing all that his Lordship has alleged, it appears to me very evident that the first and principal thing we must petition for is liberty of conscience. . . ." Finally, after consultation with his coadjutor. Dr. James Talbot, and with Bishop Hay, Dr. Challoner admitted that his demands were too large, and the three prelates wrote a joint letter to Lord Petre, chairman of the Com- mittee, strongly advising them to ask for a " free tolera- tion of Religion in private, without any mention of par- ticular grievances." (See Burton's Life of Challoner, II, p. 1 86 seq.) APPENDIX D The Bishops' resolutions on the new Oath proposed by the Catholic Committee were as follows: "I. That they do condemn the new Oath lately printed, and declare it unlawful to be taken. II. That they judge the Oath of 1778 sufficient, and that it contains in substance all that can be desired to ascertain our civil allegiance. 3. That they condemn the Oath as unlawful, without adding specific qualifications. 4. That they resolve to send an Encyclical letter to the faithful, notifying to them the condemnation of the Oath, and signifying that they ought not to take any new Oath, or sign any new Declaration in doctrinal matters, or subscribe any new Instrument wherein the interests of religion are concerned, without the previous approbation of their respective Bishop. 5. That they declare the new appellation or denomina- 376 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD tion ' Protesting Catholic Dissenters ' to be highly ob- jectionable, 6. That the clause in the bill not to educate any child a Papist is pronounced not admissible. 7. The clause in the same bill not to educate any child of Protestant Parents a ' Protesting Catholic Dissenter ' is also declared to be inadmissible. 8. The clause ' that all uses, trusts and dispositions, whether of real or personal property, which immediately before the passing of the Act shall have been deemed superstitious or unlawful, shall continue to be so deemed and taken,' the four Vicars- Apostolic wish to be sup- pressed. Charles Ramaten, V. A. [Walmsley] James Birthan, V. A. [Talbot] Thomas Aconen, V. A. [Talbot] Matthew Comanen, V. A. [Gibson]." The Encyclical, dated Oct. 21st, 1789, is signed by the four vicars-apostolic and ends: "These determinations are judged necessary to the promotion of your spiritual welfare, to fix an anchor for you to hold to, and to restore peace to your minds. To these determinations, therefore, we require your submission." APPENDIX E Speech of Dr. Samuel Horsley, Bishop of St. David's, in the House of Lords, May, 1791. " My Lords, with great charity for the Roman Catho- lics, with a perfect abhorrence of the Penal Laws, I have my doubts whether the bill for their relief, that has been sent up from the Lower House, comes in a shape fit to be sent to a Committee. . . . APPENDIX E 377 Fixed as I am in the persuasion that religion is the only solid foundation of civil society ... I am equally fixed in another principle that it is a duty, which the great law of Christian charity imposes on the Christian magistrate, to tolerate Christians of every denomination separated from the Established Church by conscientious scruples; with the exception of such sects only, if such there be, which hold principles so subversive of civil government in general, or so hostile to the particular constitution under which they live, as to render the extermination of such sects an object of just policy. My Lords, I have no scruple to say that the opinions which separate the Roman Catholics of the present day from the communion of the Church of England, are not of that dangerous com- plexion." 'After referring to the breach with Rome at the time of the Reformation and the extinction of the Stuart family, Dr. Horsley continues: " This bill is to relieve the Roman Catholics from the Penal Laws, under the condition that they take an Oath of Alleg"iance, Abjuration and Declaration, the terms of which Oath the bill describes. The bill will relieve such Roman Catholics as take this Oath, and none else. Now, my Lords, it is, I believe, a well-known fact that a very great number — I believe I should be correct in saying a very great majority— of the Roman Catholics scruple the terms in which this Oath is unfortunately drawn, and declare they cannot bring themselves to take it. . . . They are ready to swear allegiance to the King, they are ready to abjure the Pretender — to renounce the Pope's authority in civil and temporal matters . . . they are ready to re- nounce the doctrine that faith is not to be kept with heretics . . . that Princes excommunicated by the See of Rome may be deposed by their subjects; but to this deposing doctrine they scruple to apply the epithets of impious, unchristian and damnable . . . they think this doctrine is rather to be called false than impious, traitor- ous than unchristian; they say that the language of an 378 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD oath should not be adorned, figured, and amplified; but plain, simple and precise." With regard to the spiritual authority of the Pope, the speaker remarked that if that were allowed, some indirect interference with the civil government would in certain cases inevitably follow. These principles Catholics could not abjure; the most that they should be asked to swear should be that they would never act upon them to the prejudice of the State, and never do anything that would be construed as hostile to the Government or Constitution. This they had already done in taking the Oath of 1778, and were willing to do again. It was true, he added, that the Catholic Committee did not admit that the Oath bore the meaning which was objected to. That he would not argue beyond saying that it contained things which he himself, as a Protestant, would refuse to swear. The Catholic Committee, however, in denying that meaning, avowedly accepted the spiritual supremacy of the Pope just as fully as the others did, con- tending that the Oath as it stood was not incompatible with such acceptance. Thus the contest was one of words. Both parties were equally loyal. Whatever could be alleged against the bishops could with equal truth be alleged against the Committee . . . the dispute between them had been carried on at first in terms of moderation; but as time went on the two parties had grown warmer, and hard words had been used on both sides. " The scrupulous Catholics speak of the writings on the other side as schismatical, scandalous and inflammatory; the Catholic Committee charge the [bishops] with inculcating principles hostile to society and government, and to the Constitution and laws of the British. My Lords, these reproaches are unmerited, I think, on either side; but they are for that reason stronger symptoms of intem- perate heat on both sides. . . . What is to be thought of offering relief to Catholics on condition of their taking an oath, when they are divided into two parties, of whom one say that they can not take it? . . ." APPENDIX F 379 APPENDIX F The following is the text of the " Fifth Resolution of the English Roman Catholics on the ist February, i8io": " The Roman Catholics of England are firmly per- suaded that adequate provision for the maintenance of the civil and religious establishments of this kingdom may be made, consistently with the strictest adherence on their part to the tenets and discipline of the Roman Catholic religion; and that any arrangements, founded on this basis of Mutual Satisfaction and Security, and ex- tending to them the full enjoyment of the civil constitu- tion of their country, will meet with their grateful con- currence." " It must be observed," says Husenbeth in his Life of Bishop Milner (p. 173), "that this Resolution is ex- pressed almost in the very words of Lord Grenville's celebrated Letter to the Earl of Fingall, of January 25, which embodied the sentiments of the ministry, and dis- closed their designs. . . . Having pointed out the pro- posal of vesting in the crown an effectual negative on the appointment of Catholic Bishops, in other words, the Veto in its worst sense, the noble Lord goes on to say: " That adequate arrangements can be made for all these purposes " (Veto, of course, included) " consistently with the strictest adherence, on your part, to your religious tenets, is the persuasion you have long been labouring to establish. Were it otherwise,, I should indeed despair. But that these objects may be reconciled, in so far as respects the appointment of Bishops, is known with un- deniable certainty." Here is the key to the real meaning of the famous Fifth Resolution; and no wonder that Dr. Milner . . . clearly saw in it " the Veto in its most hideous form." Needless to say Charles Butler's account takes a different view: "On the 31st January ... a deputa- 38o LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD tion of catholic noblemen and gentlemen met earl Grey and lord Grenville, at the house of the former: Mr. Wind- ham also attended this meeting. ... It was most strictly agreed that no particular reference to the veto, or to any specific pledge, was intended; and that the only thing recommended to the English catholics was, 'such a general expression of their wishes of mutual satisfaction and security, as existing circumstances made proper, to accom- pany their petition.' To this there could be no reasonable objection. . . ." {Htst. Mem., Vol. IV, p. i66.) APPENDIX G Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Declaration made and subscribed by Her Majesty, on her throne in the House of Lords, previously to the delivery of her most gracious speech to both Houses of Parliament, on Monday, the 20th of November, 1837: " My Lord, at the opening of Parliament our gracious Queen, in accordance with the present state of the law, made and subscribed the ' Declaration against Popery ' in presence of the Lords and Commons of the Kingdom. It was a novel and impressive spectacle, witnessed, prob- ably, by many with feelings of joy and triumph, but calcu- lated to suggest to men of more sober judgment abundant matter for deep and painful reflection. The latter saw, with regret, a young female sovereign brought forward to act such a part at so early an age. For the declaration, be it observed, is not a mere expres- sion of belief in the doctrines of one church, and of dis- belief in the doctrines of another : it goes much farther : it condemns, in the most solemn manner, the worship and practices of the greatest body of Christians in the world, and assigns to them, without any redeeming qualification, the epithets of superstitious and idolatrous. APPENDIX G 381 Now, to exact such a declaration and condemnation from the Queen, at her accession to the throne, was thought both cruel and indecorous, considering on the one hand her youth, and on the other, that diligence of enquiry, and maturity of judgment, which the proceeding, on her part, necessarily presupposed. . . . Nor was it only cruel and indecorous with respect to the Queen, it was ungracious also to a most numerous portion of her subjects. Of all the insults which may be offered to a man, in his character of a Christian, the most offensive, by far, is to brand him with the infamous name of idolater. Yet, this odious imputation was our young and amiable Sovereign compelled to cast upon the whole body of Roman Catholics in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and her transmarine dominions . . . nine mil- lions of her subjects. . , . Nor was this all. The declara- tion, in its sweeping censure, comprehends the whole Catholic world; and therefore, by making it, the Queen was made to pronounce her beloved friend, the consort of her uncle of Belgium; her sister Queens of Spain and Portugal idolatrous. Of the four parties to the quadruple alliance, she has declared all but herself to be idolatrous. Can she hope for the blessing of God on such an alliance? But the fault was not with her. It lies in a vicious system of legislation, by which she was as much con- troled as the meanest of her subjects: a system which originated in passion and prejudice, during a period of religious excitement, but which has long been giving way before the gradual development of more tolerant prin- ciples. ... At first, the declaration was obligatory on all as a qualification for a seat in Parliament, or for admis- sion to office . . . now, with the aid of a different text, Roman Catholics have free access to the senate and the magistracy, to the courts of law, and the offices of state. For what object then, it may surely be asked, is the obligation of taking and subscribing this obnoxious form still imposed upon Protestants? — As a security for the Protestant worship? But it offers none: none on the part 382 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD of the sovereign : for there cannot exist a man so obtuse as to believe that the Queen was less a Protestant before, or became more a Protestant after she had subscribed the declaration. . . . For what end then is it still retained? Certainly not for the production of mischief, by generating heart-burns and misunderstandings among a people, whose greatest strength must lie in their union. Yet such is its obvious tendency. . . . The persons called upon to make and subscribe the declaration may be divided into three classes. The first consists of the few who, having previously enquired, may have come to the conclusion that the doctrine and worship of the Roman Catholic Church are superstitious and idolatrous. . . . The second comprizes the greater number; all those who perform the act as a matter of course, without sus- picion or consideration, but who must still be conscious that it is no justification of a doubtful action to allege that it is frequently done by others. Lastly come those who, aware of the difficulties with which the declaration is beset, make it indeed, but make it not without reluctance and many misgivings. . . . Why then, it may again be asked, is this form, so revolting to the feelings of some, so distressing to the consciences of others, and so unproductive of benefit to any, suffered to remain on the statute-book? Why should not the Legislature of this kingdom be content with that which has been found amply sufficient for the purpose of govern- ment in every other kingdom of Europe; — that is, with a test of civic allegiance as a qualification for office in the state, and a test of doctrinal adhesion as a qualification for office in the Church? No reasonable man can require more. I have the honour to be, My Lord, your Lordship's most obedient servant, ." BIBLIOGRAPHY LINGARD'S PUBLISHED WORKS 1. Letters on Catholic Loyalty. Originally published in the New- castle Courant. Newcastle, Edw. Walker, 1807, sm. 8vo, p. 36. 2. The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Newcastle, 1806, 2 vols., 8vo ; 2nd edit. ib. 1810, 8vo ; Philadelphia, 1841, i2mo ; 3rd edit, {really a new work, entirely recast), The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, containing an account of its Origin, Government, Doctrines, Worship, Revenues, and Clerical and Monastic Institutions. London, Dolman, 1845, 2 vols., 8vo ; 4th edit., London, 1858, 2 vols., 8vo ; sth edit., London, Baker (reprinted from plates of 4th edit.). 3. Remarks on a Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham by Shute, Bishop of Durham, at the Ordinary Visita- tion of that Diocese in the year 1806. London, Keating, 1807, 8vo ; 2nd edit. il>. 1807, 8vo, p. 52. 4. A Review of a Pamphlet entitled " A Protestant's Reply." New- castle, Mitchell, 1807, sm. 8vo, p. 38. 5. A Vindication of the " Remarks on the Charge of the Bishop of Durham." Newcastle, Hodgson, 1807, sm. 8vo, p. 57. 6. A General Vindication of the " Remarks on the Charge of the Bishop of Durham," containing a Reply to a Letter from a Clergyman of the Diocese of Durham (second edition) ; a Reply to the Observations of the Rev. Thomas Le Mesurier, Rector of Newton Longville ; a Reply to the Strictures of the Rev. G. S. Faber, Vicar of Stockton-on-Tees ; and some Observations on the More Fashionable Methods of Interpreting the Apocalypse. Newcastle, Hodgson, 1808, sm. 8vo, p. 102. Reprinted several times. 7. A Letter to a Clergyman of the Diocese of Durham in Answer to His Second Letter to the Author of the Remarks on the Bishop of Durham's Charge. Newcastle, Preston, 1808, sm. 8vo, p. 62. 383 384 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD 8. Remarks on a late Pamphlet entitled "The Grounds on which the Church of England Separated from the Church of Rome, Reconsidered by Shute, Bishop of Durham." London, Bodker, 1809, sm. 8vo, p. 64. 9. The Controversy between the Rev. John Lingard and Shute Barrington, and the Rev. T. Mesurier. Dublin, Coyne, 181 1, 8vo {includes 3, 4, 6, 7, 8). 10. Tracts Occasioned by the Publication of a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham by Shute, Bishop of Durham. Newcastle, Walker, 1813, sm. 8vo, pp. xii-376 {in- cludes 3, 4, 6, 7, 8). Translated into French. Paris, 1829, 8vo. 11. The Protestant Apology for the Roman Catholic Church. By Christianus ( William Talbot). Prefixed is an Introduction con- cerning the Nature, Present State and True Interests of the Church of England, by Irenseus { = Lingard). Dublin, Fitz- patrick, 1809, 8vo, pp. clxvii-66. 12. Errata to the Protestant Bible, by Thomas Ward. With a Preface by the Rev. J. L. Dublin, 1810, 8vo ; ib. 1841, 8vo. 13. Defence of Ward's Errata to the Protestant Bible. By the Rev. J. L. Dublin, 1810, i2mo. 14. Documents to Ascertain the Sentiments of British Catholics in former ages respecting the Power of the Popes. London, Booker, 1812, 8vo, pp. iv-38 and Appen. p. 15. 15. A Review of Certain Anti-Catholic Publications, viz. a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Gloucester in 18 10, by George Isaac Huntingford, D.D., F.R.S. ; A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln by George Tomline, D.D., F.R.S. ; and Observations on the Catholic Question, by the Right Hon. Lord Kenyon. London, Booker, 1813, 8vo, p. 88: 2nd and 3rd edits, id. 16. Examinations of Certain Opinions advanced by Dr. Burgess, Bishop of St. David's, in two recent Publications, entitled "Christ, and not Peter, the Rock of the Christian Church" and "Johannis Sulgeni versus hexametri in laudem Sulgeni patris, Menevensis Archiepiscopi." Manchester, 181 3, 8vo, p. SI. 17. Strictures on Dr. Marsh's " Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome." London, Booker, 181 5, 8vo, p. 88. 18. Observations on the Laws and Ordinances which Exist in Foreign States Relative to the Religious Concerns of their Roman Catholic Subjects. London, 1817, 8vo ; 2nd ed. London, 1851, 8vo, pp. iv-28. BIBLIOGRAPHY 385 19. Journal on a Tour to Rome and Naples in the Summer of 1817 (MS.) Extracts published in Ushaw Magazine, XVII (1907), pp. 160, 248. 20. History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of William and Mary in 1688. London, 1819-30, 8 vols, 4to preface, vols, i, ii, iii, dated Hornby, May i, 1819 ; iv, October 15, 1820 ; v. May, 1823 ; vi, July 4, 1825 ; vii, 1829 ; viii, 1830 ; the first six published by J. Mawman, the two last by his successors, Baldwin and Cradock ; 2nd edit, ib., Mawman, 1823-30, 14 vols., 8vo ; 3rd edit, ib., Mawman, 1825-30, 14 vols., 8vo ; 4th edit, ib., Booker, 1837-9, 13 vols., i2mo, corrected and enlarged ; 5th edit, ib.. Dolman, 1849-51, 10 vols., 8vo ; 6th edit. ib., 1854-5, Bvo, 10 vols. ; 7th edit, London, Nimmo, 1883, 10 vols., 8vo. Reprinted at Philadelphia and Paris. Translated into French (two edits.), Italian, and German. The ind French edition (Paris, 1833-8, 21 vols., 8vo) was continued to 1837 by M. de Martes and personally revised by Lingard. 21. The Charters granted by different Sovereigns to the Burgesses of Preston, in the County Palatine of Lancaster. Preston, 1821, 8vo, pp. iv.-95. 22. Supplementum ad Breviarium et Missale Romanum, Adjectis officiis Sanctorum Anglias. Londini, Keating and Brown, 1823, 8vo, p. 105 ; Index and Approb., 3 p. 23. A Vindication of certain passages in the Fourth and Fifth Volumes of the History of England. London, 1826, 8vo, p. 112 ; id. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edits. ; London, 1827, 8vo, 5th edit. {with postscript in answer to Dr. Allen's Reply, etc.), p. 120. 24. A Collection of Tracts on several subjects connected with the Civil and Religious Principles of Catholics. By the Rev. J. Lingard, D.D. {includes Nos. 3, 4, 6-8, 14-18). London, Keating and Brown, 1826, cr. 8vo, pp. xi-479. 25. Sermons for the Different Sundays of the Year and some of the Festivals and on other Important Subjects. By the Rev. Thomas White. Arranged from his MSB. by the Rev. John Lingard, D.D. London, 1828, 2 vols., 8vo, pp. xi-407, vii-472 ; London, Dolman, 1841, 2 vols., 8vo. 26. Remarks on the " Saint Cuthbert " of the Rev. James Raine, M.A., etc. Newcastle, Preston and Heaton, 1828, sm. 8vo, p. 68. 27. A Manual of Prayers for Sundays and Holidays. Lancaster, 1833, i8mo ; second and further editions {enlarged by the Rev. Robert Tate). York, Croshaw, 1837, i 8mo, p. 178; id., 1840, 1844. 28. A New Version of the Four Gospels ; with Notes, critical and explanatory. By a Catholic. London, Jos. Booker, 1836 8vo, pp. XX-421 ; London, Dolman, 1846, 8vo ; id., 1851, 8vo. 2 c 386 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD 29. Letter to the Lord Chancellor, 1837. 30. The Widow Woolfrey versus The Vicar of Carisbrooke : or Prayer for the Dead. A Catholic Tract for the Times. Lon- don, Cath. Instit. Tracts, 1839, 8vo. 31. The Bible, the only Rule? or. Doubts and Queries, respectfully addressed to the Rev. J. H. Green Armytage, one of the Lec- turers against Popery at St. Anne's. By a Lancaster Idolator. Lancaster, A. Milner, 1839, sm. 8vo, in two parts, pp. 11, 18; Lancaster, 1887, i2mo. 32. Catechetical Instructions on the Doctrines and Worship of the Catholic Church. London, 1840, i2mo; id., 2nd edit. p. 139; new edit., London, 1844, i8mo. ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS British Critic. New Series. I. (1825-6), pp. 309-332 of Corrippus. II. (1826), pp. 78-93. Eusebii titum. Signature. Review of the "Johannis" Chronicon Bipar- CathoUc Magazine. I- (1831). 546. Petitions at beginning of Litanies. 484. II. 35. On the Miracle of S. Januarius. 670, 730; II. 161, 322, 701. Translation of those Psalms which usually occur in Catholic Books of Devotion. II. (1832). 1 10. Priest Catchers' List. 419. Review of Benedictional of S. yEthelwold. 557. English College at Rome and Benedictionals. III. (1833.) 17, 126, 302, 384; IV. III. On the Litany of Loretto. 133. On the Doxology. V. (1834.) 85, 232, 591 ) 88, 220 > On Prayer Books. 448 S 89, 142, 203. A First or Shorter Catechism. 499, 704, 774 ; VI. 221. On Protestant Ordinations. 162, 223. On Cranmer's Letter to Henry VIII. 366. John WyclifFe, the Reformer. 762. Protestantism the greatest enemy of the Church in England. 607. Translation of " Ave Maris Stella " (" Hail, Queen of Heaven "). 387 H. H. H. Y. H. Y. H. Y. H. Y. Proselytos. H. Y. Sacerdos. Angla. Anglus. Catechistes. J. Lingard. H. Y. H. Y. J. L. Pros. 388 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Edinburgh Catholic Magazine. Signature. V. (1841), 25. Inscription at Autun. VI. (1842), 429. Suppression of Second Command- ment. J. Lingard. New Series. I. (1843), 270. Translations of "Alma Redemp- toris," " Ave Regina," and " Salve." Dublin Review. VI. (1839), 395-415. Review of Tierney's " Dodd." VIII. (1840), 334-373. Did the Anglican Church reform herself? XI. (1841), 167-196. The Ancient Church of Eng- land and the Liturgy of the Anglican Church. Dolman's Magazine. III. (1846), 133-145. The Lost Church of Perran- zabuloe. Published Letters. Ushaw Magazine. XVI. (1906), 1-29. INDEX A BBOT, CHARLES, first Lord Colchester, 121 Acton, Charles J., Cardinal, 264, 265 ' Addington, Henry, first Viscount Sidmouth, 176 Agazzari, Fr., S.J. , 148 Alexander VI, 352 Allen, John, 99, 157, 158, 207, 208, 213, 21S-19 Allen, William, Cardinal, 20, 21, 22, 36, 146-8, 198, 199 Ancajani, Baron, 221 Andrews, William Eusebius, 126, 169, 180 Anglesey, Marquis of. See Paget Archer, James, 193 Artaud, Chevalier, 225, 226, 228 Arundell, James, ninth Lord, 105 gAGSHAWE, H. R., 275, 277 Baines, John, Bishop, 31, 96, 234 Baldi, Monsignor, 152 Baldwin and Cradock, 232, 248, 257, 269 Bathurst, Henry, Bishop of Norwich, 173 Belasyse, — , 7 Bell, John, 66 Bell, of Melling Hall, 250 Benison, Thomas, 10 Benison, Mrs., 12 Bentinck, William Cavendish, third Duke of Portland, 40, 102, 119 Berington, Charles, Bishop, 43, 45, 49> 54, 71 Berington, Joseph, 59, 167, 309 Bernetti, Cardinal, 226 Blacoe, Robert, 66 Blomfield, C. J., Bishop of London, 178, 182, 201, 204, 205, 206, 231, 362 Blount, Edward, 190, 205, 271 Blount, H. Tichbourne, 23 Blundell, of Ince Blundell, 115, 230, 232 Bodenham of Rotherwas, 124 Boleyn, Anne, 272, 273, 294, . 330 BoUand, Sir William, Baron, 254 Bonaparte, Joseph, 14S Booker, Joseph, 122, 157 Borgia, Cardinal, 82 Borgia, Lucretia, 352 Bradley, John, 60, 203, ■2.21, 234 Bramston, Yorke, Bishop, 234, 267 Brantfime, Pierre de, 218 Braschi, Cardinal, 151 Breeks, John, Vicar of Carisbrooke, 278, 279 Briggs, Bishop, 257 Bristow, Richard, 22 Brougham, Henry, first Baron Brougham and Vaux, 136, 157, 230, 241, 242, 313 389 39° LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Brown, G. H., Bishop, 68, 212, 284, 316, 317, 366 Brown, Rawdon, 181 Buckingham, Marquis of. See Gren- ville Buckingham, Marchioness of, 6g Burdett, Sir Francis, 206 Burgess, Thomas, Bishop of St. Davids, 311 Burke, Edmund, 10, 12, 13, 25, 50, SS. S8 Burke, Richard, 15 Butler, Charles, 25, 29, 39, 45, 48, 49. SI. 54. 57, 73. 8s, 98. loi, 108, 117, 122, 124, 125, 126, 130, 157, 167, 174, 179. 209. 214, 216, 233, 246, 260, 281. Butler, Thomas, 12 Byron, Lord, 120, 143, 341 PAMDEN, CHARLES, Lord Chancellor. See Pratt Cameron, Alexander, Bishop, 76, 77, 78 Campion, B. Edmund, S.J., 22, 26 Canning, George, 120, 121, 230, 231 Carisbrooke, Vicar of. See Breeks Carlyle, Thomas, 332-4, 341, 364 Carte, Thomas, 91, 95, 180 Castlereagh, Lord. See Stewart Catherine of Braganza, Queen, 18 Catterick, Father, 319, 320 Challoner, Bishop, 9, 16, 17, 28 Charles II, 27 Charles X, 225, 227 Charles Edward, Prince, 9 Ciaconius, 199 Clement XIII, 9 Clement XIV, 76, 150 Clenock, Maurice, 146-8 Clifford of Chudleigh, Lord, 64, 105, 286 Clifford, Lady, 69 Clifford, Sir Charles, 140 Cloche, Jacques, de la, 236, 237 Coates, — , of Bedlington, 102 Colchester, Lord. See Abbot CoUingridge, Bishop, 120, 155, 156 Consalvi, Cardinal, 146, 151-4, 164, 165, 176, 193, 201, 202, 294, 295 Coombes, W. H., 66 Corhara, Roger, 7 Cornbury, Lord, 244 Coulston, John, 95, 115, 249-51, 268, 313, 333, 342, 367-70 Cousens, Henry, 251 Cowdray, Ursula, 7 Crathorne, Francis, 107 Crawford, Earl of. See Lindsay Cretineau-Joly, J., 226, 227 Croft, Mary, 363 Croker, John W. , 344 Cromwell, Oliver, 332-4 Curr, Joseph, 85 Curtis, Archbishop, 171 J^ALGAIRNS, J. DOBREE, 321 Dalton, Miss, 247 Daniel, John, 33, 36, 66-8, 81 Dawson, Pudsey, 114, 253 Derbaix, M., S3 Dickens, Charles, 341 Dodd. See Tootell Dollinger, J. J. von, 254, 255 Dolman, Charles, 274, 312, 313, 316, 327, 328, 331, 348, 349, 369 Dominic, Father, 323 Donoughmore, Earl of. See Hely- Hutchinson Dormer, Charles, ninth Baron, 123 Douglass, James, Bishop, 48, 49, 51, 60, 62, 6s, 67, 68, 79, 81-3, 103, no, III, 116 INDEX Dowbiggen, Anne Winder, lo Dowbiggen, John, 10 See J7LD0N, Lord Chancellor. Scott Elizabeth, Queen, 22, 27, 28, 37, 19s Englefield, Sir Henry, 39, 44 Erskine, Charles, Monsignor, S2, 83 Eustace, J. C, 158, 167 Eyre, Thomas, 61, 62, 67, 72, 85, 97, 106, 107, no, III pABER, F. W., 321, 353 Farnese, Cardinal, 149 Fellowes, — , 232 Fenwick, John, II Fenwick, Mrs, 11-13, 112 Fenwick, Thomas, 13, 119, 343 Termor, William, 44, 54 ffaithwaite, — , II Fitzgerald, Hon. Vesey, 232 Fitzherbert, Mrs., 72 Fletcher, John, 169, 193, 239, 315 Fogg, Thomas, 115 Fox, Charles James, 13, 119, 343 Fox, Henry, first Lord Holland, 13, 99. 122, 123, IS7, I58> 215-19,271 QAGE, JOHN, 164 Galignani, William, Z19 Gandolphy, Peter, 153 Geiger, Gustav, 272 George II, 73 George HI, 72, 80, 102, 188, 281 George IV, 18S, 230 George, Prince of Wales, 72 Gibbon, Edward, 75, 154 Gibson, Matthew, Bishop, 40, 44, 48, 105 Gibson, William, Bishop, 23, 32, 33, 48, 49, SI, 60, 61, 63, 66, 67, 80, 151, 82, 84, IDS, 107, III, 139, 160, 161, 177, 191 Gillow, John, 60, 66, no, iii, 257 Gillow, Thomas, 62 Gladstone, W. E., 278 Goderick, Lord. See Robinson Godwin, Francis, Bishop of Here- ford, 94 Goldsmith, Oliver, 1 80 Gordon, Lord George, 14 Gorham, G. C, 357 Gradwell, Robert, Bishop, 151, l6l-S, l6g, 175, 180, 181, 186-9, 193, 196, 198-200, 201, 202, 2og, 212, 217, 220, 223, 224, 234, 247, 339 Grant, Thomas, Bishop of South- wark, 317 Grassi, G. A., s.j., 161, 164 Grattan, Henry, 120 Gregori, — , 217, 224 Gregory XIII, 21, 148 Gregory XVI, 252, 253, 262, 286 Grenville, G. Nugent, first Marquis of Buckingham, 58 Grenville, Hon. Thomas, 231 Grenville, Wm., Wyndham, Lord, 50, 100, loi, 119, 173, 188 Grey, Charles, second Earl, 173, 182 Griffiths, Thomas, Bishop, 262, 324 Guizot, Francois, 339, 342 UALL, WILLIAM, 187, 196, 212 Hallam, Henry, 241, 251, 277 Hamilton, Sir William, 219 Hardman, John, 336 Hawkesbury, Lord. See Jenkinson Hay, George, Bishop, 28 Hely-Hutchinson, John, second Earl of Donoughmore, 1 1 Henry, Robert, 91, 95 392 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Hickman, Sir Neville, 4 Hippesley, Sir J. Cox, 72, 132, 145, 152, i6i Hoadley, Benjamin, Bishop of Win- chester, 73 Hodgson, Joseph, 82, 85 Hogarth, William, Bishop, 68 Holland, Lord. See Fox Holland, Lady, 271 Hollingsworth, — , 103 Holmes, John, 256 Hook, Walter F., Dean of Chiches- ter, 2S0 Horsley, Samuel, Bishop of St. David's, 51, 74 Howard, Bernard Edward, twelfth Duke of Norfolk, l88, 194, 233, 273 Hume, David, 95, 109, 145, 170, 180, 183, 208, 370 Husenbeth, F. C, 70, 238, 245, 252, 323, 32s, 360 JAMES H, 16, 18, 244, 344, 345 James, P'rancis Edward, 9 Jenkinson, Charles, first Baron Hawkesbury, first Earl Liverpool, 80, 119, 120, 173 Jenner, Sir Henry, 278, 279 Jerdan, William, 365 Jerningham, Edward, 116, 123 Johnson, Christopher, m.d., 367, 369 Johnson, Samuel, Dr., IJ Joyce, Hannah, 241, 293-6, 298, 314, 319-21 Julius HI, 147, 150 !/■ AVE JOHN, Bishop of Bristol, 219 Kean, Edmund, 159 Keating, George, 157 225, 212, 289, Keen, Miles G., 331, 332 Kipling, Thomas, Dean of Peter- borough, 131, 132, 352 Kirk, John, D.D., 71, 82, 157, 160, 161, 164, 166, 169, 170, 183, 190, 194, 201, 217 J^AMARTINE, A. de, 333, 338 Lamb, William, second Viscount Melbourne, 271 La Mennais, F. de, 220, 223-8 Lansdowne, Lord. See Petty Lappenberg, J. M., 312 Larkin, — , S.J., 364 Laval-Montmorency, Duke of, 226 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 295 Le Mesurier, Thomas, 121, 122 Leo XII, 96, 201, 202, 211, 220-3, 225, 229, 232, 23s, 317 Leo XIII, 163, 281 Lewin, Sir Gregory, 251 Lindsay, Alexander W., twenty- fifth Earl of Crawford, 330 Lingard, Jane, I, 6 Lingard, John, I, 2, 5-7, 55, 56, 84 Lingard, Mrs., 8, 19, 55, 84, 97, 157, 172, 203 Lingard, Ralph, I Lingard, William, i Litta, Cardinal, 129, 145, 150, 152, 153 Liverpool, Earl of. See Jenkinson Lockwood, J., 319, 320 Lomax, Mrs. Thomas, 367 Lonsdale, James, 250, 337 Louis XVI, 139 Louis XVIII, 139, 140 Louis-Philippe, King, 339 Loyola, St. Ignatius, 147 INDEX 393 Lucas, Frederick, 318 Lythgoe, Randall, S.J., 236 ]y[ACARTHY, Dean, 118 Macaulay, Thomas B., first Baron, 341-6, 351, 370 MacDonald, Sir Archibald, Jo Mackintosh, Sir James, 185, igo Macpherson, Paul, 129, 139, 145, 150, 151, 166 Macready, William C, IS9 Mai, Angelo, 203, 225 Marche, F. de la, Bishop of St. Pol de Leon, 57 Marie-Louise, Empress, Duchess of Parma, 143 Marini, Monsignor, 163 Markham, of Claxby, i Marsden, A., 253 Marsden, John, 1 14 Marsh, Herbert, Bishop of Peter- borough, 132 Marsh, Richard, O.S.B., 138 Martin, Gregory, 21 Martin, Pire, S.J., 302 MarviUiers, J. de, 218 Mary, Queen of Scots, 22 Masson, Papire, 217, 218 Mathew, Theobald, Father, 297, 298 Mawman, Joseph, 95, 157-9, 165, 167, 170, 178, 182, 185, 186, 19s, 196, 201, 203-8, 210, 216, 219, 221, 231, 233, 249 Maxwell, Hon. Mrs., 308 Mayne, B. Cuthbert, 28 McNeile, Hugh, 320 Meagher, Thomas F., 338 Melbourne, Viscount. See Lamb Metcalfe, Dom Placid, 7 Mignet, F. A. M., 272 Milner, James, Bishop, 7, 9, 16, 17, 39. 52. SS-7. 65, 69, 71-4, 82. 83, 97, loi, 108, 116, 118, 119-21, 123, 124, 126, 129, 130, 134-7, 144-6, 153. 167-74. 179. 180, 183, 184, 188, 191-3, 199, 200, 203, 211, 236, 238, 24s, 246, 360, 369 Mirabeau, V. R. de, 32 Mitford, John F., first Baron Redes- dale, 50, 51 Moore, John, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 51 Morone, Cardinal, 147 Mosheim, J. L. , 91 Mostyn, F. G., Bishop, 287 Moylan, Dr., Bishop of Cork, 79, no, 118 Murray, Agnes, 298, 299 Murray, David, 113 Murray, John, 113, 296, 368 Murray, Mrs., 113, 296, 368 Mylius, 170 J^APOLEON I, 77. 127, I39. 140, 141, 142, 154 Napoleon HI, 35, 340 Nassau, John, 72 Necker, Jacques, 154 Necker, Madame, 155 Newsham, Charles, 258, 268, 283, 285, 288, 289, 303, 337, 338 Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 28, 322-6 Ney, Michel, Marshal, 139 Nolan, James, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17 Norfolk, Duke of. See Howard Northumberland, Duke of. See Percy Nugent, Lord, 188 QAKELEY, FREDERICK, 321, 322, 323 O'Brien, Smith, 338 394 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD O'Connell, Daniel, 232, 233, 250, 291. 317, 318, 319, 338 O'Finan, — , 200 O'Gorman Mahon, C J. P., 338 Oliver, George, D.D., 230, 243, 249, 285,287, 288, 311, 332 Oliviera, — , 34, 35 Orrell, John, 84, 97, 104, 107 Otto, M,, 80 pAGET, HENRY WM., first Mar- quis of Anglesey, 233 Palgrave, Sir F., 294, 330 Pallavicini, — , 181 Palmer, William, 314 Palmerston, Viscount. See Temple Panizzi, Sir Anthony, 248, 249 Parker, Captain, R.N., 210 Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury, 94 Parnell, Sir Henry, 132 Peel, Sir Robert, 230, 252, 318 Penswick, Thomas, Bishop, 62, 65, 192, 194, 263, 267 Percy, Lord, 273, 294 Perceval, Spencer, 119 Percy, Sir Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland, 273 Persons, Robert, s.j. , 26, 27 Petre, Robert James, eighth Baron, 39, 41, 42, 44, 49 Petrie, Henry, 182, 183, 219 Pettrigrew, Thomas, 365 Petty, William, second Earl of Shel- burne, first Marquis of Lansdowne, 44, 49i 188 Philips, Morgan, 20, 21 Phillips, Professor, 252 Phillips, Thomas, 98 Phillpotts, Henry, Bishop of Exeter, 103, 209 Pitt, William, 40, 44, 46, 50, 58, 64, 80, 116, 119 Pius VI, 72, 76, lOS Pius Vn, 72, 74, 96, 127, 129, 142, 145, 154, 161, 176, 187, 193, 201, 252, 265 Pius VIH, 23s Pius IX, 340, 361, 365, 366 Plowden, Charles, s.j., 109, 117, l6o, 174, I7S> 177. 187, 197 Plunket, Wm. Conyngham, first Baron, 188, 189 Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, 28, 98, 146, 147, 184, 282 Pollock, Sir J. F., 242, 253 Pope, Alexander, 18 Portland, Duke of. See Bentinck Potter, de, 247 Poynter, William, Bishop, 82, 83, III, 118-20, 127, 129, 132-6, 138, 144, 14s, 151-3, 156, 157, 160, 176, 179, 189, 191, 197, 210, 214, 222, 229, 233 Pratt, Sir Charles, first Earl Camden, 10, II Price, Edward, 26, 261, 328, 343, 346, 347, 348, 351 Proctor, 114, 196 Pugin, Augustus Welby, 301, 302, 303. 336, 361 Pusey, E. Bouverie, 305 QUARANTOTTI, CARDINAL, ^ 127, 129, 152 "D AINE JAMES, 237, 238 Ramsay, James, 337 Ranke, Leopold, 272 Rapin, Paul de, 95, 180 Raumer, von, 255, 256 Rechberger, George, 133 Rees, Rice, 311 Rennell, 2, 3, 5 INDEX 395 Rennell, Elizabeth, 2, 3, 5 Rennell, Thomas, Dean of Win- chester, 6 Rigby, J., 154, 162 Robespierre, Maximilian, 333 Robinson, F. J., Viscount Goderick, 231 Rocls, Daniel, 265 Rockingham, Marquis of. See Wat- son-Wentworth Rootham, John, s. J., 364 Roujoux, Baron, 217 Russell, Lord John, 354 gCARLETT, JAMES, 6rst Baron Abinger, 242 Scott, John, first Earl of Eldon, 120 Scott, Sir Walter, 341 Searle, Monsignor, 35 Sewell, Nicholas, S.J., J97 Sharpe, C. Kirkpatrick, 330 Shelburne, Lord, See Petty, 40, 49 Sheldon, William, 39 Shepherd, William, 240, 241, 248, 293 Sherburne, Thomas, 366 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 295 Shrewsbury, Earl of. See Talbot Shute, Barrington, Bishop of Dur- ham, 101-3, 109 Sibthorpe, R. Waldo, 306, 324 Sidmouth, Viscount. See Addington Silvertop, George, 62, 158, 178, 257, 312. 327. 337 Silvertop, Henry, 62 Simpson, Richard, 345 Skaife, Thomas, 336 Smedley, E., 248, 249 Smith, Sydney, 231 Smith, Thomas, Bishop, 72, 81, 82, m. 139. I7S. 177, 190-2 Smollett, T. George, 180 Smythe, Percy C, sixth Viscount Strangford, 210 Soames, Henry, 311 Somaglia, Cardinal, 152, 175, 225 Sone, John, 68 Southey, Robert, 77, 204, 214, 254, 270 Spencer, George John, second Earl, 182 Spencer, Hon. George, Father, 310 Spencer, Lady, 182 Spiiller, E., 228 Stael, Madame de, 155, 156 Stanhope, Charles, third Earl, 44, 45 Stanhope, Philip Henry, fifth Earl, 117 Stewart, Robert, Viscount Castle- reagh, second Marquis of London- derry, 79, 120, 130 Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester, 312 Stonor, Christopher, 32, 48 Stonor, Mrs., 246 Storey, Arthur, 60 Stourton, Charles Philip, seventeenth Baron, 33, 35, 40, 54, 57, 60 Stourton, WilUam Joseph, eiehteenth Baron, 33, 35, 137, 142, 145, 221, 253 Stourton, Lady, 69, 137, 247, 253 Stapleton, Gregory, Bishop, 64, 66, 67, 72, 73. 74, 81 St. John, Ambrose, 325 Strangford, Viscount. See Smythe Strickland, Agnes, 328-31, 341 Strickland, William S.J., 105 Sturges, Dr. Prebendary of Win- chester, 73, 74 'pALBOT, DARCY, 349 Talbot, Hon. James, Bishop, 9, 17. 23,44,48,49. 69. 281, 304 396 LIFE OF JOHN LINGARD Talbot, Charles, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, 103, 123, 188 Talbot, John, sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, 255, 273, 286, 311, 338 Talbot, Hon. Thomas Bishop, 42, 48, 54, 71, 82 Talfourd, Sir T. N., 331 Tate, Robert, D.D., 245, 246, 252, 262, 283, 32s, 331, 336, 337, 349 Tatham, Sandford, Admiral, 114, 2S3. ZS4 Tempest, Stephen, 141, 161, 164 Tempest, Mrs., 141 Temple, Henry John, third Viscount Palmerston, 231 Testa, Monsignor, 186, 221 Thompson, Richard, 62, 160, 278 Thomson, Thomas, 330 Thorpe, Benjamin, 311 Thrale, Mrs., 15 Throckmorton, Sir J., 39, 263 Thurlow, Edward, first Baron, 50 Thwing, Thomas, 28 Tichbourne, H., 23 Tierney, M. A., 2, 30, 217, 218, 274, 277. 313, 328, 352, 367, 369 Tillotson, John, Archbishop of Canterbury, 91 Tomline, George, Bishop of Lincoln, 121, 122 Tootell, Hugh, 274, 313 Torlonia, Prince, 220, 223 Trafford, Thomas, 123 Tristram—, S.J., 105 Troy, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 98 Turiozi, Cardinal, 226 Turnbull, W. B., 328, 330 Turner, Sharon, 95 Turnerelli, Peter, 173 TTLLATHORNE, WILLIAM, Archbishop, 355 YAVASOUR, SIR EDWARD, 354, 319 Vendeville, de, 20, 21 Ventura, Padre, 227, 229, 234, 235, 369 Victoria, Queen, 16, 266, 279, 362 Villele, Count de, 225 Vinn, Richard, 7 Vyner, Robert, 4 ■y^ALES, PRINCE OF, 154 Walker, Edward, 86, 98, 109 Walker, John, 73, 115, 155, 228, 260, 272, 283, 293, 300, 307, 313, 314, 322, 324, 342, 344, 356, 364, 366, 368 Walker, Obadiah, 344 Walker, William, Provost, 8, 30 Walmesley, Charles, Bishop, 5, 49, 51,63,64,82 Walmesley, — , 363 Walpole, Horace, 15 Walsh, Bishop, 252, 262, 277, 286, 354 Ward, W. G., 321, 322, 323 Ward, Mrs., 322 Watson- Wentworth, second Marquis of Rockingham, 40 Weedall, — , D.D., 181, 244 Weld, Cardinal, 253 Weld, Joseph, of Lulworth, 5O1 57, 64, 83, 105, 124, 137, 161, 164, 280 Wellesley, Arthur, first Duke of Wellington, 230, 231 Wemyss, Francis, fifth Earl, 114 Wesley, John, 14 Weddrington, 7 Wilberforce, Henry, 326 Wilkes, Joseph, O.S.B., 43, 49, 50 William III, 16, 244 INDEX 397 William IV, 241 Wiseman, Nicholas, Cardinal, 100, 211, 220, 223, 224, 228, 234, 235, 243, 247, 251, 252, 253, 265, 27s, 276, 283, 285, 287, 292, 302, 304- 9. 314-16, 322, 353-8, 360-2, 367, 368 Witham, Robert, D.D., 23 Wolfrey, Joseph, 278, 279 Wolfrey, Widow, 278, 279 Wordsworth, William, 254^ 270 Worthington, Thomas, 22 Wright, George, 114, 253 Wright, Thomas, 365 Y'OUENS, THOMAS, d.d., 238, 258 Young, Arthur, 2 Young, George, ^ Young, Miss, 170 7URLA, CARDINAL, 202, 220, 223 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRKNDON AND SON, Lru. PLYMOUTH