Is the Queen a ' Papist' ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 27, Issue 21, 27 May 1909, Page 822

Is the Queen a ' Papist ' ?

The Protestant Alliance has dressed up a new bogey and is busy scaring itself out of the few battered fragments of sanity that are left to it. Briefly, the Alliance insinuates that Queen Alexandra is a 'Papist' — or has at least moved far towards ' Popery.' This fearsome ' discovery ' has been keeping it awake o' nights, and it has communicated its fears to its votaries in the Vanguard (one of the Alliance class of periodicals) in an article bearing the scare-head title : ' Queen Alexandra's Religion : Is she a Roman Catholic?' The date of the publication (it may be stated) was the first of April — a singularly appropriate and auspicious day for the publication of the' article in question. The text of it is before us in full in the Glasgow Observer of April 17. ' The furnishing of her [the Queen's] bedroom,' says the Vanguard, ' asr revealed by the photograph, is pointed to as evidence of Queen Alexandra's leaning towards Roman Catholicism. The central place in this rather crowded room is occupied by her Majesty's bed, a Tbeautiful piece of furniture of the Louis XVI. period. . . The first object that strikes the eye is a crucifix, the figure of Christ, life-size, beautifully carved in ivory.' [The virtuosi will, no doubt, be extremely curious to see the piece or pieces of ivory that were large enough to make a ' life-size ' figure of Christ.] ' This significant object,' adds the Vanguard, 'is hung at the head of the Royal bed, under the canopy, just where it would be hung by the Mother Superior of a convent.' [Mother Superiors will, no doubt, be interested to learn that they take their brief hours of slumber in canopied beds.]

• There are still other horrors in store. 'To the right of the bed,' continues the alarmed Vangtiard, 'is a collection of religious objects to which those who assert that the Queen is leaning towards Rome point as evidence of their assertions. High on the wall hangs a sixteenth century painting of the Virgin Mary in its original^ frame, with wonderfully chased and pierced brass doors." Over the head of this picture, and set in the framework, is a reliquary or box intended to contain a relic of some saint who is the object of special devotion by the ofwner. British debaters point out that the little holy-water font, of the same period, placed underneath this picture, is jjist where it would be placed by a pious Catholic, who on going to bed and rising, blesses "herself with fingers which have been immersed in the font. To the left of the sixteenth century picture of the Madonna containing the reliquary is a very fine copy of the famous Dresden Madonna. On a line with this, again to the left, is another sixteenth - century tryptich, containing another beautiful painting of the Virgin Mary, with St. Joseph and St. Elizabeth on the wings. This also is a wonderfully valuable work of art, in a perfect state of preservation, not having sustained the faintest injury in the three hundred years of its existence. Underneath this is a very fine -marble statuette of Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount, also a reproduction of a famous masterpiece.- "Underneath the Dresden Madonna is a water-color showing the Shepherds being led "to the stable at Bethlehem, and underneath this again is a reproduction of Guido Reni's wonderful head of Christ with the Crown of Thorns — that well-known example of what is called by the purists, meretricious art, for when you gaze on it the eyes seem some-

times to be closed and a moment later to be dimly jpon and full of inexpressible sorrow and suffering. The whoie room presents, indeed, more the appearance of a shrine than a bedroom — at least, so far as the character of the artistic objects immediately around the bed are concerned.' * ' Unfortunately,' says tlie Glasgoxo Observer in an editorial comment on the latest Protestant Alliance bogey, ' there is nothing in all this giving the least evidence that Queen Alexandra is a Catholic, or that she is anything more than a Protestant with some spiritual emotions. It is probably quite unparalleled that the bedroom of a Queen of England (for the past few centuries at least) should be decorated with Christian emblems. The Christianity of Royalty, since the Stuart times anyhow, has never been quite aggressively Christian. No doubt Queen Alexandra could have a bust of Buddha, a statuette of Lucifer, a picture of Venus or any other heathen goddess adorning her bedrooom, and the Vangufird would not object. Like Rory O'More's tombstone, it is the " Popery " in the business that troubles it. " Take any shape but that!" and the Protestant Alliance will never murmur. After all, it is rather an impertinence even on the part of a Protestant Alliance paper, to discusss, much less to claim to decide ,what ornaments or objects of piety ought or ought not to be allowed to adorn a Royal bedroom in~ England. The Queen, whatever her religion may be, is Queen, and can remain so without the permission or approval of the Protestant Alliance.'