The Englished Isles

Norman Davies is a British historian, important to us for his book The Isles A History, in
which he deals with the whole British history. In the first semester we have already read The
Introduction to this work.
Thanks to the cultural monopoly established by Protestants, before the start of religious
toleration, no alternative views on the causes and effects of the Reformation could be
published.
Those Catholics who were exiled maintained a running commentary of opposition and the
result of this is that the first major English Catholic histories of the Reformation in England
were written by foreigners. The author of the first Catholic-inspired History of England was
Father John Lingard. He lived from 1771 to 1851. He was form a recusant family and was
sent abroad to study at the English Jesuit College at Douai. After his return to England he
spent most of his time in the village of Hornby in Lancashire. His history was ignored by a
British Establishment and they excluded Lingard from the historical roll of honour.
His history deals with the time From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of
Henry VIII, an 8-volume work published in 1819. The core of the work is concentrated on the
Tudor age. His views deviate from the established view. They often rely on telling and well
substantiated details, which open up new ways of interpretation. Also, as a Catholic historian
of the time, he was isolated from the nationalism which surrounded his Protestant opponents.
First description we're going to deal with is the description of Hundred Years War, which by
the words of Norman Davies, faithfully follows each of the political and military twists of the
conflict. Again, his tone omits the standard nationalist tone and he even does not hesitate to
criticise the English conduct. He talks about the faith of the Duke of Suffolk to show how
two-faced the English are.
(The Duke) sailed from Ipswich with two small vessels, and sent a pinnace before him to
enquire whether he might be permitted to land at Calais. But the pinnace was captured by a
squadron of men of war He was ordered on board and received on deck by the captain with
thee ominous salutation, "Welcome traitor!" On the second morning, a small boat came
alongside, in which were a block, a rusty-sword, and an executioner; the Duke was lowered
into it and beheaded.
Second description is of the King Henry VIII. Pope Leo X gave him the title of the Defender
of the Faith in 1521. After Luther escaped from the Imperial authorities, the king wrote to
Charles V about the dangers of doctrinal innovation.
Henry himself was anxious to enter the lists against the German; nor did Wolsey discourage
the attempt That the treatise in defence of the seven sacraments, which the king published
was his own composition, is forcibly asserted by himself, that it was planned, revised and
improved by the superior judgement of the cardinal and the bishop of Rochester, was the
opinion of the public. The dean of Windsor carried the royal production to Rome, and in a full
consistory submitted it to the inspection and approbation of the pontiff. Clement accepted the
present with many expressions of admiration and gratitude, and conferred on the English
monarch the title of Defender of the Faith. It may be here observed that in neither of the bulls
granting or confirming this title, is there any mention of inheritance. The title belonged to the
king personally, not to his successors. But Henry retained it after his separation from the
communion of Rome; and in 1543, it was annexed to the crown by act of parliament. Thus it
became hereditable by his successors; it was retained even by Philip and Mary, though the
statute itself had been repealed. Luther wrote an answer to Henry, but the intemperance of his
declamation scandalised his friends, while it gave joy to his enemies. To the king, he allotted,
no other praise than that of writing in an elegant language; in all other respects, he was a fool
and an ass, a blasphemer and a liar.
Few could miss the absurdity of the consequences. Almost five hundred years later, the initial
FD (Fidei Defensor) are still carried on all British cions and Queen Elizabeth II still sports
papal title that was awarded for opposition to the founder of Protestantism.
Third is the account of Queen Mary's reign and the persecution of Protestants. John Lingard
called it the foulest blot. He also tried to show that the return to the Catholic orthodoxy was
not without the public support. Her marriage to Philip of Spain makes the point :
In the beginning of March, 1554, the Spanish ambassador arrived in London, and espoused
Mary in the name of the prince of Spain. Both houses (of Parliament) unanimously concurred
in an act confirming the treaty of marriage, declaring that the queen should continue to
enjoy and exercise the sovereignity as sole queen Philip soon arrived at Southampton,
escorted by the combined fleets of England, the Netherlands and Spain. The moment he set
his foot on the beach he was invested with the insignia of the order of the Garter. On the
festival of St James, the patron saint of Spain, July 25th, the marriage was celebrated in the
cathedral church at Winchesster, before crowds of noblemen collected from every part of
Christendom, and with a magnificence which has seldom surpassed. From Winchester the
royal pair proceeded, by slow journeys, to Windsor and metropolis.
Religious intolerance was normal for 16th century Europe. To help you imagine the religious
scene in this time I'll read you an excerpt Catholics persecuted Protestants; Protestants
persecuted Catholics; Lutherans persecuted Calvinists. Calvinists persecuted non-
conformists like everyone else. Everyone persecuted women suspected of witchcraft. In this
insanity of religious intolerance queen Elizabeth I came to the throne. She is known to us as a
Protestant queen who was a very successful leader and she managed to avoid the civil war.
Bloody Mary's excesses are always considered to be avoided by her half-sister, but Lingard
was eager to show an even hand.
Elizabeth continued to persecute all her subjects who did not practise that religious worship
that she practised herself. Every other form of service, whether it be that of Geneva or the
mass, was strictly forbidden: and both the Catholic and the puritan were made liable to the
severest penalties if they presumed to worship God according to the dictates of their
consciences
But still he added Some puritans died martyrs to their religious principles; but their
sufferings bore no comparison with those of the Catholics.
To conclude this part Norman Davies claims - Lingard faced a delicate task. On the one
hand, as a patriotic Englishman, he wished to praise their achievements. On the other hand
as a good Catholic, he could not excuse the inexcusable.
The Elizabethan age has frequently been identified as the moment when England rose to
greatness and the queen had more admirers than her father, to whom now they referred to as
repulsive. To perform his delicate task, Lingard confined his worst criticisms to the
personality of Elizabeth calling her irresolute, vain, overbearing, scandalously unchaste,
irritable and bloodthirsty.
Elizabeth has been numbered among the greatest and the most fortunate of our
sovereigns. The tranquillity which, during a reign of nearly half a centur, she
maintained within her dominions, while the neighbouring nations were convulsed with
intestine dissensions, was taken as a proof of the wisdom of the vigour of her
government; and her successful resistance to the Spanish monarch and the spirit she
displayed by her fleets and armies and even East Indies, served to give the world an
exalted notion of her military and naval power. When she came to the throne, England
ranked only among the secondary kingdoms; before her death (England) had risen to a
level with the first nations in Europe.
It is evident that neither Elizabeth nor her ministers understood the benefits of civil
and religious liberty. The prerogatives which she so highly prized have long since
withered away; the blood stained code which she enacted against the rights of
conscience has ceased to disfigure the pages of the statue book; and the result has
proved that the abolition of despotism and intolerance adds no less to the stability of
the throne than to the happiness of the people.
The historians who celebrate the golden days of Elizabeth, have described with a
glowing pencil the happiness of the people under her sway. To them might be opposed
the dismal picture of national misery drawn by the Catholic writers of the same period.
But both have taken too contracted a view of the subject. Religious dissensions had
divided the nation into opposite parties, of almost equal numbers, the oppressors and
the oppressed. Under the operation of the penal statues, many ancient and opulent
families have been ground to the dust; new families have sprung up in their place; and
these as they shared the plunder, naturally eulogized the system to which they owed
their wealth and their ascendancy. But their prosperity was not the prosperity of the
nation; it was that one half obtained at the expense of the other.
In Lingard's time, rare were those who criticised the founders of Anglicanism. One of the few
to share his low opinion were Charles Dickens and William Cobbett, whose interesting
comments you can find in the text.
Also he did nor pay too much attention to the fate of Catholic martyrs, unlike subsequent
Catholic writers. They were angered because the suffering of Catholics wasn't regarded to be
as important as suffering of Protestants and also because it was claimed that some saintly men
were executed for their political views and not their religion. One of them was Campion who
right before his execution said if you esteem my religion treason, then I am guilty. As for
other treason, I never committed any
Their deaths were terrible. After being hanged up, they were cut down, ripped up, and their
bowels were burned in their faces.