Two main motives can be discerned in the timing of Gladstone’s actions. In the first place, his Government had been brought down, at least in part, because of the refusal of the Catholic bishops to support his education and Irish policies; Gladstone’s hopes that Manning would back him had come to naught, and he had become convinced that Catholic bishops were being guided by the Vatican. The second motive lay closer to home. In August 1874 Gladstone’s wife received a letter from Lady Ripon, the wife of a former ministerial colleague of Gladstone’s; it contained the news that her husband was about to convert to Catholicism. Gladstone was ‘stunned’ by the news. How was it, he asked Lady Ripon, that Ripon ‘can have gone through those processes of long and long-tested enquiry, which are the absolute duty of such a man as he is, before performing that tremendous operation of changing his religion, and becoming a sworn soldier in the army banded to destroy the Church that had been his home?’ He found it unintelligible that, after the Syllabus and the declaration of Infallibility, any man of intelligence and spirit could take such a step. ‘There is not a man who is more sensible than I, of the hollowness of the popular arguments against Romanism; nor is there one who is more profoundly convinced that the Romanism of today is the best ally of unbelief because it continually drives off from faith, wherever it has sway, the awakened and the searching, even if reverent, mind of man.’[i] Ripon’s conversion was, to Gladstone, ‘a deplorable calamity’.
That September Gladstone visited Cologne where his sister, Helen, another convert to Rome, was living. His purpose was the usual one, a brotherly attempt to win her back for Anglicanism. Whilst there he talked with his old friend, Dollinger, the leader of the old Catholics who had broken with Rome over Infallibility. He also followed closely the attempts of the Bismarck Government to bring the Catholic Church under state control – the Kulturkampf. It was out of this maelstrom that Gladstone’s pamphlet emerged.
It ought to be noted, however, that, it did not emerge without consultation with his old friend, Lord Acton. It was natural, given the mutuality of their admiration for each other and their dislike of the Vatican Decrees that Gladstone should have turned to Acton for assistance. On 19 October he wrote that: ‘Circumstances have made it necessary for me to say a few words … with respect to the actual Church of Rome in its relations to mental freedom and civil loyalty’; the next day he began writing a pamphlet on the theme.[ii] Acton, who thought that Ultramontanism was ‘incompatible with Christian morality as well as with civil society’, replied that ‘no reproach can to be too severe’, because ‘Real Ultramontanism is so serious a matter, so incompatible with Christian morality as well as with civil society, that it ought not to be imputed to me who, if they knew what they are about, would heartily repudiate it.’ There were, he feared, too many Catholics ‘who know not what they adhere to, and are unconscious of the evil they are really doing, besides many who take a more or less honest refuge in inconsistency.’ [iii] Thus encouraged,Gladstone pressed ahead with his pamphlet.
But when he actually saw the text, Acton was taken back: ‘The result is to demand of the Catholics security against Ultramontanism under pale of losing their claim to Liberal, to national respect and support – in reality, under pain of a tremendous No Popery cry.’ Gladstone was ‘deaf’ to Acton’s ‘political, spiritual and other obvious arguments against publication.’ [i] Since one of his intentions was to divide the Ultramontanes from the liberal Catholics, the fact that Acton of all men was driven to say ‘I should meet his challenge on my own account’, ought to have given him pause for thought; that it did not is a sign of the headwind behind the former Prime Minister. As he explained to Granville:: ‘My proper and main motive has been this: the conviction that I have that they (Roman Catholics) are waiting in one vast conspiracy, for an opportunity to direct European war to the re-establishment by force of the temporal power … I desire in homely language to do the little in my power to put a spoke in their wheel’. He acknowledged that ‘the priest party will be furious’, but he hoped to embarrass the ‘moderate men’ into doing ‘their duty.’[ii] Had Newman ‘possessed will and “character” enough, he ought to have been in the same noble conflict for the truth’ as Döllinger;[iii] Gladstone’s pamphlet might smoke him – and others – out. It was an indication of the effect of ant-Catholicism on his thinking that Gladstone failed to see that ‘the simple fact of the matter was that if a Catholic accepted Infallibility, he was one of those attacked … Protest as he might, Gladstone had thrown the gauntlet down before all Catholics, including his liberal friends.’[iv]
[i] McElrath, The Syllabus of Pius IX, p. 228, Acton letter, 4 November, 1874.
[ii] Ramm, Gladstone-Granville Corr. II, p. 458.
[iii] McClelland, Gladstone and Manning, p. 161.
[iv] McElrath, p. 229.
All Along the Watchtower 
Hard to comment on this, not many places to shove a comment in, and yes, that is a compliment.
It strikes me that Gladstone here comes off nearly as out of the mainstream (of the upper class anyway) as Palmerston’s sillier adventures in Jingoism.
Good stuff, that is all new (to me, anyway, I’ve seen very little on this).
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Glad you enjoyed it. A lot to digest, I fear.
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There is a lot in there, which is why I enjoyed it. i always like things I didn’t know before 🙂
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Thank you. Incidentally, Jessica had a surprise supper invitation – which I hope will lift her spirits.
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You’re quite welcome. And thank you, I was wondering about her a bit. I will assume she’s having a good time 🙂
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Yes, all last minute – so a genuine surprise.
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Good deal, then 🙂
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I hope so.
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Indeed
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I sympathise deeply with Gladstone. Thank goodness that ultramontanism seems to be on the wane in the church of Rome. Yet there is still room for prudent doubt. Why does not Rome make it’s contrition clear? Then we can all move on as friends and brothers together? Rome continues to want to have it both ways, it seems to me, occasionally wheeling out the ‘anti-Catholic’ claim as a projected defence.
S.
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As you can see from Bosco (and here he is far from atypical) it matters not what Rome apologises for, it will still be dwelt upon by those obsessed with the past. If you find there is no ‘anti-Catholicism’ then you live in a fortunate place; it is a sad fact of life, not an excuse to be wheeled out. I think Rome has given more than sufficient indication of its desire for better relations, but your own Church insists on unilaterally doing things which it knows get in the way. Or are you telling me no one in the C of E thought that ordaining women priests would have any effect on ecumenical relations? Perhaps Canterbury could show us all the way by apologising for three centuries of anti-Catholicism – and make some reparation with the confiscated property it seized? A token church might do? After all, where I am, the C of E is getting rid of them as fast as it can because so few people use them any more.
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Apologies for not making the focus of my comment clearer – I ought to have used a better word that ‘contrition’. My point is not so much that Rome apologises (which is really neither here nor there, particularly for Christians of all flavours where forgiveness is a large part of the faith), but rather that there is prudent doubt as to Rome’s intentions going forward.
Rome has given (as most Christian bodies have) an indication of a desire for better relations. To use ghastly management speak, the low hanging fruit of ecumenism have already been picked. Those things that are left at present one can see as having some form of importance for churches.
Therefore it is not so much an obsession with the past, as you put it, that is my concern, but rather ensuring that the Body of Christ is being built in the future.
There is the concern of the future intention of the church of Rome, particularly, although not exclusively, as regards Unam Scantam.
The world today is fractured as regards faith, with the temporal governments of the world paying rather limited attention to Christianity. Yet our Christian hope is for unity – to have that Body of Christ united on earth, and mystically with heaven too. Therefore whilst your church might with some plausibility be able to claim that the Unam Sanctam dictates are of no current relevance, they are of much future relevance.
Let me peer into this Christian hope for the future that is the Body of Christ. We can argue about what ‘Church’ means, and whether there is an elect or a universalist approach to heaven, yet surely we can agree that a part of the coming of the Kingdom is for there to be – God willing – a new Christendom on earth, global this time. In such a vision, it would no doubt be the case that the church of Rome would (amongst other churches) be in much better favour than is the case in much of what today passes for the secularised ‘developed world’. In such a vision that we all surely hope for, the statements made in Unam Sanctam are relevant to glean how Rome would see its role when it is no longer fighting the battles that currently consume much of its energies.
C referred in a recent comment earlier to me (on another post) that Unam Sanctam is to do with a former struggle ‘between Church and State’. He then, albeit somewhat jokingly, suggested that an Anglican might ‘take the side of the State’ in such a struggle. Even if I were to agree to such a sharp division between ‘Church’ and ‘State’ that C seems to allude to, his point to me seems to confirm the need to maintain ones guard against Roman intentions. He suggests, does he not, that he would ‘take the side of the Church’, meaning his church of Rome, against the ‘State’. This is what we all fear – a capture of the see of Rome, a see with centralised unlimited powers, by forces that are not benign – with the RCs taking the ‘side of the Church’ as a matter of their faith.
So, back to that assertion as to the low hanging fruit of ecumenism having already been picked. Rome has yet to remove doubt in clear public authoritative documents that in the future the dangers that we foresee (and are within the realms of possibilities – look at European history, after all) are dangers that we can be certain that Rome will strive to avoid. Where is this message right now?
I have been told on this blog that Vatican documents have no expiry date or half-life – Unam Sanctam (and, indeed, other distasteful documents such as Regnans in Excelsis – those ‘English martyrs’ were made so only because Rome put otherwise decent Englishmen in an impossible position, and they, like C, opted to to with the ‘Church’ over the ‘State’, without consideration of conscience, such as to which may have the more Christlike approach) so the point is a real one for us today.
Rome could, if it wishes, address this matter in a flash, but it does not. C may feel that he has ‘sufficient indication’ on this matter – I do not.
So let me move to C’s other points:-
A reference to the C of E ‘doing things which it know get in the way’. The standard, my friend, is Christ, it is not today’s Rome. Christ came to give life and to light the way to abundant life. He did not come to found the church of Rome.
‘Confiscated property’? If Rome wants to use Anglican buildings, it only has to ask: witness the shared parish in Much Hadham (Google for it).
C of E getting rid of churches because ‘so few people use them any more’? A claim from C that is froth. The history of England is such that the vast majority is English churches are rural, and England is no longer an agrarian society with very limited transport means for the village dweller, so it is no surprise that many of the more sparsely used churches are no longer used. A rudimentary internet search brings up mixed reports, with many RC churches closing too:
http://www.whychurch.org.uk/num_churches.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/devon/7136003.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8211544/Churches-halt-decline-new-research-shows.html
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I am at present reading the excellent biography of Thomas Macauley by Zareer Masani. After serving with the Honourable East India Company in Calcutta (he is still much revered in India) he returned to Europe, and spent his first Christmas back in Europe in Rome. Masanis text reads thus:
“He pronounced the procession in St. Peter’s to be the finest he had ever seen.”
and then later:
“Among the crowds of tourists, he spotted the English politician, William Ewart Gladstone, to whom he introduced himself and chatted, finding him ‘both a clever and aimiable manwith all his [religious] fanatacism'”
So Gladstone was snooping around Rome. I think this must be Christmas 1838.
And I cannot help but quote further from Masani’s book, the previous page:
“The politician in him was also both fascinated and appalled by ‘the strange Brahminical government’ of the Papal States. ‘Corruption affects all the public offices,’ he observed. ‘Old women above, liars and cheats below – that is the Papal administration. The States of the Pope are, I suppose, the worst governed in the civilized world; and the imbecility of the police, the venality of the public servants, the desolation of the country, and the wretchedness of the people, force themselves on the observation of the most heedless traveller'”.
This from the man who had just completed writing the admirable Indian Penal Code, which still well serves many nations to this day. A man familiar with the Brahmins and the civilisations of India. Quite a damning view from a well respected statesman of the day – and one not clouded either with religious rivalry either: this former evangelical had long given up on religion.
S.
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Gladstone was fascinated and repelled in equal measure by Rome. Macaulay’s anti-Catholicism shnes through most pages of his excellent History of England, and he was, no doubt, genuinely repelled by what, to him, fell short of the finest English traditions. But at the same time as he was being so quintessentially Whiggish about Rome, a German was writing this about England:
‘But the sacrifices which all this has cost become apparent later. After roaming the streets of the capital a day or two, making headway with difficulty through the human turmoil and the endless lines of vehicles, after visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realises for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilisation which crowd their city; that a hundred powers which slumbered within them have remained inactive, have been suppressed in order that a few might be developed more fully and multiply through union with those of others. The very turmoil of the streets has something repulsive, something against which human nature rebels. The hundreds of thousands of all classes and ranks crowding past each other, are they not all human beings with the same qualities and powers, and with the same interest in being happy? And have they not, in the end, to seek happiness in the same way, by the same means? And still they crowd by one another as though they had nothing in common, nothing to do with one another, and their only agreement is the tacit one, that each keep to his own side of the pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd, while it occurs to no man to honour another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest, becomes the more repellent and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together, within a limited space. And, however much one may be aware that this isolation of the individual, this narrow self-seeking, is the fundamental principle of our society everywhere, it is nowhere so shamelessly barefaced, so self-conscious as just here in the crowding of the great city. The dissolution of mankind into monads, of which each one has a separate principle, the world of atoms, is here carried out to its utmost extreme.”
Not, of course, that the Liberal Macaulay seemed to notice the plight of his fellow countrymen. Like so many of his kind, he was very apt to point out the motes in the eye of Johnny Foreigner. It took Engels and Marx (the quotation is from Engels) to point out that the British were not exactly giving a new Jerusalem experience to their own urban masses. One only has to read Rowntree at the end of the century to see how little had changed.
One of the fascinations of Macaulay is his worship of ‘progress’ without noticing that the lives of his fellow Britons were, on the whole, poor, nasty, brutish and short. His much admired industrialisation and urbanisation exacted a great price on the humanity of those subjected to it.
That’s the problem with the past, of course, it never measures up to what we do now, and for the Victorian Englishman, the rest of the world was an inferior place. Of course, foreigners wondered why the British never noticed their own hypocrisy; but solipsists seldom do. Yes, the Vatican State was not paradise on earth, but the purlieus of Victorian London hardly gave the impression of a realm whose rulers cared for much beyond their own interests. C
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Certainly, at Macauly’s time and almost up to now, “God is an Englishman,” and a Protestant one at that, for the rest they’re Wops and or Wogs.
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It is a curious thing, to be sure.
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DBMW – you have a warped view of the faith of fellow Christians if you really think that. Did not Macauley (who was no real fan of religion) abolish the separate legal systems for Indians and Europeans in India under EIC rule? Yes.
A poor comment from you, I think.
Let us pray for healing between Christians in the world.
S.
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To respond to C’s comment on Macaulay:
I find it a bit of a stretch to equate Macaulay, an esteemed statesman in English history, with the Marxist Engels. Marxism, uniquely among political philosophies, defined itself as a science. To its adherents, its propositions were not speculative but empirical. Yet every one – every one – of them turned out to be false.
According to Marx-Engels: capitalism was supposed to destroy the middle class, leaving a tiny clique of oligarchs ruling over a vast proletariat. In fact, capitalism has enlarged the bourgeoisie wherever it has been practiced. Capitalism was supposed to lower living standards for the majority. In fact, the world is wealthier than would have been conceivable 150 years ago. The whole market system was supposed to be on its last legs when Marx and Engels were writing. In fact, it was entering a golden age, hugely benefiting the poorest. As Schumpeter put it, the princess was always able to wear silk stockings, but it took capitalism to put them within reach of the shop girl. The living standard of a Briton on benefits today is higher than that of a Briton on average wages in the 1920s.
So to Macaulay: a key player in the passing of the Reform Act 1832, a man noted for him sympathies for persecuted minorities, so Masani’s text has him. And on religion, no bigoted views here: Masani states that Macaulay made it clear that his own preference would have been for England to become ‘a secular state’ at the reformation, with ‘perfect freedom of conscience’, and he ‘did not shirk from attacking a Whig icon like Elizabeth I’, and, having rejected his fathers stern evangelical faith, he remained an agnostic for the rest of his life.
As for Seebohm Rowntree, then please compare his first study in 1899 with his others in 1935 and in 1951 and see the difference.
Your quote from Leviathan, as applied to Macaulay, is unwarranted. You have a warped picture of the man to be sure. No-one is denying that industrialisation and the life of the average English family has not in history been extremely tough. I am acutely aware of this, having just witnessed the lives of people in India – and not just witnessed, but participated in, to a limited extent. One must not measure the past with today’s eyes, indeed.
The history of nineteenth century Britain is difficult, but this implicit drawing of an equivalence between the Papal States, such as they are described by Macaulay, and the governance of Britain – Factory Acts, Sanitary Boards, and all the rest of it – is a poor parallel.
As for foreigners noticing the rest of the world – well, one could equally apply that to the Vatican and their views on Britain at that time.
S.
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My comparison was a description by Engels of England in the same period as your description of the Papal State, and my point was that neither of them measure up to what we would expect. Had I added a description of Ireland during the famine, then I suspect most people would rather have been Italian labouring under the corrupt rule of the Papal States, than starving Irishmen under British rule; indeed, of course, so many irish made that choice for themselves and cleared off to the new world, where they could be free of the Factory Acts and Sanitation Boards – and famine.
I find it hard to see how you can miss Macaulay’s inherited anti-Catholicism; it breathes through most pages of his history.
I hold no brief for Marx, although it is interesting that we appear to be reaching a point in which wealth is now being concentrated in a decreasingly small number of hands, and middle class living standards are being squeezed. Certainly the next British general election will be dominated by this theme.
It may be that Marx exaggerated, and was wrong in his time scale, but I am not disposed to throw out the baby with the bath-water. He spotted something about the nature of capitalism which has helped, thus far, non-socialist political parties to help mitigate the effects he feared. There is a tendency to dehumanise employees and to reduce people to cogs in a machine. It will be interesting to see how we deal with the current problems of our economic system.
C
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Macaulay might well have been ‘anti-Catholic’ if to be critical of the church of Rome attracts such a label – but Macaulay was critical of so much, so I don’t see what Rome was singled out in any particular sense.
Yes, we do live in an interesting period re your point on the next General Election. That would make for an interesting post about the morality and ethics concerned with this wealth issue and the spectrum of possible solutions.
Re Marx and dehumanisation: this is a point that is close to my heart, I assure you. How can anyone of true Christian faith not have it so. Perhaps, again, something for another post.
Re Ireland, please see my response to Mark below – the link.
S.
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Macaulay’s treatment of James II is riddled with his bias. I enjoy him hugely (I usually read him once a year) but he would have been a better historian if he has not carried his Whig bias into his writing.
I suspected we were agreed on the other issues. There are no easy answers, but at least we are asking questions. Thank you for your link on Ireland.
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Having made further progress of Masani’s excellent book on Macaulay, let me quote this part:-
“He [Macaulay] took a defiantly liberal stance on government policy towards Catholics and Ireland. He defended the appointment of three Roman Catholics as Privy Councillors, accused the Tories of plotting to repeal the Catholic Emancipation reforms of 1829 and credited the government with bringing peace and the beginnings of prosperity to Ireland by replacing British military occupation with a policy of conciliation. ”
So, how about this alleged bias towards James II?
I must get his History of England – it sounds as if his prose style is the greater pleasure than the historical content.
I am now reading of Macaulay’s interpretations of the goings on concerned with the First Opium War. He has, shall we say, some interesting things to say.
S.
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I think if you read his history, you will see it; and I strongly recommend it, he is a fine stylist of the old school.
Yes, in real life politics, he tended to take the side of religious liberalism – but that was because he didn’t believe any of it was true.
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But if one is in favour if religious liberty, or even if one is anti-religious, does that make one ‘anti-Catholic’ ? That latter term, to me, suggests that RCs are being singled out for criticism.
I shall read Macaulays History of England – it sounds like it’s a good read.
S.
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If you read the History, your questions will be answered – and you will have an enjoyable time of it too.
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And who can forget the care and concern shown by the great Protestant fathers of the nation in the relief of their fellow countrymen during the Irish potato famine (1845-1852), while absentee landlords exported more than enough grain to feed the population – between thirty to fifty shiploads per day.
And in particular from erastian Gladstone – “Ireland, Ireland! that cloud in the west, that coming storm.” Or in 1868 he said ‘My mission is to pacify Ireland’ or in 1881 he established the Irish Coercion Act, which permitted the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to detain people for as “long as was thought necessary”.
Contrast that with Benjamin Disraeli – Consider Ireland…. You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.
Ah halcyon days, we papists never had it so good.
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Yes, Struans has started a good game, and the fun is that there are lots of quotations to show that in the past things were bad; if we wanted to have real fun, we could find some to show we’re little better – the abortion stats come to mind.
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And I had such a big pile of stones to through in my glasshouse
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I think you mis-read me if you think that I have started a ‘game’ as if to mock those who suffered in history from poor social conditions. And if that reference to abortion is directed at me, I am not for a free-for-all on the matter, as I have commented elsewhere.
S.
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Not at all, Struans. My point is that I am not a great believer in the idea we are morally superior to our ancestors – abortion being our equivalent to the blot of slavery.
On the ‘game’ issue, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek. I deal too much, perhaps, with those who think our own age better than the past.
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I don’t think that I have declared on this blog before my Irish (part) ancestry. Farmers from Bandon from a Huguenot background. They moved up to Dublin around the turn of the century, and then left around 1912 to England, in part due to nationalist agitation. Let us seek out a balanced scholarly view on the famine then:
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/the-widows-mite-private-relief-during-the-great-famine/
S.
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I think we are agreed on feelings of moral superiority as regards history.
S.
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