ROMAN CATHOLIC HOMAGE TO THE KING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11692, 29 June 1901, Page 6 (Supplement)

ROMAN CATHOLIC HOMAGE TO THE KING.

The London correspondent of a New York paper, writing respecting the interview of the Roman Catholic prelates and clergy with the King, says: —

bo many cassocks and birettas had not been seen in the English Court for centuries. The cardinals, in their red attire, the bishops in purple, with a background of sombre black-cassocked priests, formed a strong contrast to the brilliant scarlet Field-Mar-shal's uniform worn by the King, as well as by his _ attending military courtiers. A sprinkling of judges, in full-bottom wigs; foreign-looking a.vocats in costume a cross between lay and cleric, and the throng of courtiers, in knee breeches and silver bucldes and gold lace, made a picture of almost medireval character. Apart altogether from the significance of the occasion, which thus brought together personalities who had been sundered in the eyes of the law for centuries, it was evident that the King, was hugely pleased at the mere spectacular effect of this commingling of representatives of past and present epochs. Cardinal Vaughan, towering above his fellow clerics, looked every inch a stately prelate, who might be either a Wolsey or an a Beckett, according to circumstances. His recent illness had aged him ten years, yet he i? still beyond question the handsomest man in the Catholic Church in England today. It w;is a matter of comment among the officials that the ecclesiastic delegation showed less; nervousness than any similar body which has made its first appearance at the Court of King Edward. This is probably due to the fact that the Catholic ritual entails a profuse ceremonial, which makes the clergy of that denomination courtiers almost as though to the manner born..