Our Roman Letter

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 28, 2 July 1924, Page 28

Our Roman Letter

(By “Stannous.”)

'’The occurrence of the recent brilliant Consistory inevitably recalls memories of other Consistories; and by a natural association of ideas, ray mind readily passes from the thought of actual consistories to the thought of all the consistories that might have been. Few Roman generations there have been that have not known one or ecclesiastics, distinguished and otherwise, whose friends or patrons would have lifted them if they could to the dizzy heights of the Cardinalate. Strangely enough my mind goes back to the memory of one such effort more than t'wo-hundrcd-and-fifty-ycars ago, when Charles 11. of England tried his hand at the sport of creating Cardinals. It "ill be recalled by the reader that that lascivious scamp,, although he had no legitimate issue to succeed him on the Stuart throne, left many natural children, several of whom he royally recognised. Down to the present day the British peerage bears traces of his paternal bounty. He ennobled several of his left-handed offspring -and did what he could to reward their complaisant mothers; he gave among them some eight or ten dukedoms, to say nothing of lesser honors. Thus his natural son by Mistress Lucy Walters was made Duke of Monmouth. The frail beauty who began life as Barbara Villiers became the Duchess of Cleveland,, and the three sons she bore to her royal lover were created respectively Dukes of Southampton, Grafton, and Northumberland, while his daughter by the same accidental alliance was made Countess of Lichfield. The elder of his two sons by Nell Gwyn, was created Duke of St. Albans, but Nellie herself was never ennobled. On the other hand Louise Querouaille, maid to the Duchess of Orleans, was invited to England alter the death of her mistress, and was created later Duchess of Portsmouth; her semi-royal' son, was made Duke of Richmond in 1675, and was naturalised in France, in 1685, as Due d’Aubigny. All this is. known to the general reader of the history of the period. But what is not so generally known is that more than once the royal rake, not content with creating civil dukes and secular princelings, sought to try his ennobling hand at the business of making Princes of the. Church. As a matter of historical fact he once made a very bold bid for a Cardinal’s Hat for a clerical kinsman of his own. When that well-planned move proved abortive here in Rome Charles did not lose, heart. A few' years after its failure we find him solemnly putting forward the same claim in regard to his eldest natural son, James Stuart alias- de la Cloche, alias Henri ,de Rohan, who died at Naples in 1669, being at the time, about twenty-two years of age;--. Ml 1 , If. O;

Charles entered London and was hailed as King of England on his thirtieth birthday, May 29, 1660. In the autumn of 1662 Sir Richard Bollings was here in Rome on a confidential mission from him to the Chigi Pope, Alexander VII. This Boilings was a, very instructive example of a type of Anglo-Irish politician that has persisted even to our own day. Of , planter stock he was a son ol that Rollings of the Pale who had helped to plunder the O’Byrnes of Wicklow and who had been a sharer in the spoils. Richard Bollings himself had been secretary to the Supreme Council in the days of the Catholic Confederacy. He was not unknown here in Rome, for nearly twenty years before this time he had come here as the agent of the Confederate Catholics, had accompanied Rinnccini when he left here for Ireland, and had proved himself later to be one of the shiftiest and craftiest of that inner gang of Anglo-Irish whose cowardice and intrigue were ultimately responsible for the failure of that last great effort to achieve and to consolidate the freedom of&lreland. His business in Rome in 1662 was to demand from the Supreme Pontiff on behalf of Charles 11. the promotion of the Abbe d’Aubigny to the Cardinalate. This nominee of the English King was Don Louis Stuart of the family whose head was Duke of Lennox in Scotland, Duke of Richmond in England and Due d’Aubigny in Franco; by the way, it was this French Dukedom which, after the death of the dukes of the older creation, was given to the son of Louise Querouaille. and to which her descendants the new Dukes of Richmond, succeeded. This Louis Stuart was reared in France in the Catholic Faith and was educated for the Church. Unfortunately at one time in his early lile he became imbued with the Jansenist heresy, but through the influence of some ecclesiastical friends at the seminary of St. Sulpice he was reconciled to the truth of the Catholic Church. Charles had known him in Paris during the days of exile, and after the Restoration he made him Almoner to his consort, Queen Catherine. In the effort to raise him to the Cardinalate Charles played a bold hand. The official instructions to Sellings, than whom no better agent could have been found, were to the effect that this promotion of the Queen’s Almoner was absolutely necessary to a proper understanding between the Pope and the Stuart King and of great importance for the good of His Britannic Majesty’s ■ Catholic subjects. Charles undertook to make him responsible for the maintenance of the Cardinal, in a manner suitable to the dignity of a Stuart and of a Prince of the Church. Rollings’ orders were also to the effect that ho was to discuss nothing until the main question had been settled, and that in case of failure he was to leave Rome immediately and to transact no other business with the ecclesiastical authorities there. Besides these official instructions Bollings carried also letters from Charles to Cardinal Chigi, the Pope’s nephew, and to Cardinal Barherini, the Protector of England. The Queen and the Queen-Mother were also helpful; each sent a letter by Sellings to Cardinal Orsini, a cousin of the two royal ladies. Bellings knew his Rome thoroughly and was not without skilful friends. Wherefore up to a certain point all went merrily. But the Holy Father was very careful; he ordered the matter to he considered prudently and committed the study of the question to a secret Congregation of his Cardinals. He also ordered that the said meeting of Cardinals should have, in writing, the opinion of some expert theologians. The result of this consultation was favorable, and at the end of the expert opinion there: was set out a lengthy list of all that the King had done for the Catholics of his realm. But the Pope still hesitated. Finally he refused the petition, and the grounds of the refusal were two; first there was more than a little uncertainty about the orthodoxy of the royal nominee as he had not quite broken with his early Jansen friends; and secondly, the Holy Father could not see his way to expose the cardinalitial dignity to possible disrespect in a country where the penal laws were still in force against Catholics., Tints Charles’ first attempt failed, but it certainly was,mot the fault of Bellings. The story was partly told 'sixty years ago in the pages of the Civ Ufa Catfolicn by the distinguished Jesuit, Father Boero; and to anyone who ’knows the methods of English diplomacy it is quite evident, from the facts set' forth by Father Boero, that Bellings |)ad little to learn, in the day of intrigue and dodgery, - : i.C- ) (To be concluded.)! . dr* J* ————■ :- ■ 1 f 4g £■, M &fc w. • -