RILEY’S HISTORIC SERIES

Number One

THE NATIONAL DEBT

THAT

AMERICAN PROTESTANTS OWE
TO THEIR BRETHREN OF THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH . .

.

BY ELIHU S. RILEY

L. H. D., of St. John’s College, Annapolis, Mabyland.

Member of the Bab of the Coubt of Appeals of Mabyland.

Author of “THE ANCIENT CITY”—a History of Annapo-
lis, Maryland; “FIRST CITIZEN AND ANTILON;”
“A HISTORY OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
MARYLAND

A

HISTORY OF ANNE ARUNDEL
COUNTY, MARYLAND;” “YE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF
MARYLAND;” “RILEY’S HISTORIC MAP OF AN-
NAPOLIS;” “YORKTOWN,” a Historic Drama, and
Co-Editor of “THE BENCH AND BAR OF MARYLAND.”

PRICE 25c - - BY MAIL 30c

IN CLOTH 75c

ARUNDEL BUILDING, WEST STREET,

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND.

1914.



COPYRIGHTED BY ELIHU S. RILEY



AhPUbQ

RILEY’S HISTORIC SERIES

Number One

THE NATIONAL DEBT

THAT

AMERICAN PROTESTANTS OWE

TO THEIR BRETHREN OF THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH . . .

BY ELIHU S. RILEY

L. H. D., of St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland.

Member of the Bar of the Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Author of “THE ANCIENT CITY”—a History- of Annapo-
lis, Maryland; “FIRST CITIZEN AND ANTILON
“A HISTORY OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
MARYLAND

A

HISTORY OF ANNE ARUNDEL
COUNTY, MARYLAND;” “YE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF

MARYLAND;” “RILEY’S HISTORIC MAP OF AN-
NAPOLIS;” “YORKTOWN,” a Historic Drama, and

Co-Editor of “THE BENCH AND BAR OF MARYLAND.”

PRICE 25c - - BY MAIL 30c

ARUNDEL BUILDING, WEST STREET,

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND.



COPYRIGHTED BY ELIHU S. RILEY.



CHAPTER ONE.

The Roman Catholic Church Saved Christianity From

Destruction by Barbarism.

Section 1.—THE SOURCES OF EVENTS ARE THE FUNDA-
MENTAL FORCES OF THEIR SEQUENCES. The potential forces of
sequences are irrefutably the results of anterior events. Causes irresis-

tibly precede events. The site of the first fountain of a river determines

its course and the aggregation of its power. There are in the American

Continent two great rivers amongst its water-way systems. At the initial

springs of both a man may stand midway between them and place a

hand in each. Yet the currents of these mighty streams, trending their

magnificent way wide apart, drain and water far separated States. A

small factor determined their directions to the sea, and resolved the

number and volume of their tributaries that made them swell into their

splendid broads on whose bosoms floats the commerce of a legion of

different and thriving communities.

History records that a trifling personal incident led the way to the

appeal to arms in the American Revolution. In one of their conferences,

when Benjamin Franklin was in England on the mission of peace to settle

the differences between the mother-country and her American colonies in

a filial and orderly manner, Lord North, the Prime Minister of England,

insulted Franklin. From that moment Franklin refused to meet Lord

North again, and the negotiations for a pacific agreement to end the

controversy were never restimed.

General Beauregard’s failure to follow up his victory in the first day’s

fight at Shiloh, though warned by an humble lieutenant that Buell would

the next day add his forces to the Federal Army, a prophecy which was

literally fulfilled, lost an important battle to the Southern Confederacy,

and had a decisive effect on its future.

The unthinking spider that wove its web at the entrance to the

hiding-place of Bruce wrote a signal line across the page of history, and

gave Scotland her freedom.

To appreciate properly the national debt that American Protestants

owe to their Roman Catholic Brethren, the explorer must ascend the



4

fountains of correlative history to their ultimate sources, and thence

descend to the broad embouchure of accomplished results, marking in

his voyage the highlands of incontrovertible truth that lead him to the

logical conclusions that, without the indomitable courage and unyielding

fidelity of the Roman Catholic Church, Christian civilization would have

perished from the earth, and if the American colonies had not had the

assistance of Roman Catholic countries and Roman Catholic leaders and

soldiers in her revolution against Great Britain, there would have been

no American Republic.

Section 2.—CHRISTIANITY IS THE BASIS OF AMERICAN
INSTITUTIONS. The first postulate in the examination of the proposi-

tion that American Protestants owe a national debt of gratitude to their

Roman Catholic brethren is that Christianity is the basis of American

law, the source of American freedom, and the creator of American civil-

ization. The religion of a nation is the measure of its attainments and

advancements, since it is, in every land, the foundation of its jurispru-

dence, the standard of its ethics, and the most potential force in its

social, domestic and public life—the author alike of its ideals and the
inspiration of its ambitions. It is inconceivable to imagine, not consider-

ing even, the existence of a people whose religious beliefs have not funda-

mentally affected their commonwealth from the humblest individual to the

utmost periphery of the entity of the nation. In England and America,

the one, the country from which the first colonists to the United States

emigrated, and the other that to which they came, the religion of the land

has particularly and peculiarly affected the citizens of these two govern-

ments, yet having a more emphatic and profound effect upon the inhab-

itants of the American Republic than it has had upon their English

forefathers, since the emigrants to the colonies, in a large measure, fled

from their own homes to a new land in order to enjoy exemption from

persecution and to secure liberty of religious worship. Here they raised

their family altars, lit the fires of freedom, and infused a new element

into the civilization which they had brought with them from their own

native-born country. This ingredient was the beautiful bloom of Christian

toleration amongst Christian believers whose full fruitage finally spread

its beneficent charity and invulnerable protection to all of opposite faiths.

In this large and hitherto unknown liberty, there was no abandonment of

their religious belief ; but the adoption of a better and a broader appli-

cation of its free and benign principles. In the United States Christianity

is, with a very small exception, the religion of its people, and the measure

of the progress of its citizens in the virtues, in the arts, in the liberties

and refinements of life, has been in the ratio of the meed with which the

nation has applied the sound doctrines of its broadest principles to its

individual and national conduct. They who gave impulse to civil and

religious liberty in America and they who preserved Christianity to

mankind, were benefactors of the American people. The Roman Cath-



5

olics of Maryland set the example in the one, and the Roman Catholics

of Europe, in the great struggle with barbarism, saved the Christian

Church from destruction by the Goths and vandals.

Section 3.—THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH—THEN THE ROMAN
CATHOLIC CHURCH—OVERCAME THE BARBARIAN AND SAVED
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. Whatever of contention may exist between

Protestant and Catholic as to the precise date when the Papacy arose in

the Christian Church and became its temporal and spiritual head, all

students are agreed that it was in full authority and jurisdiction over

the Church in the Sixth Century. Thus, when the Christian Church is

described in its entirety, at this period, it necessarily means the Roman

Catholic Church. In this epoch then came the death struggle between

barbarism and Christianity. One or the other was to fall. “I think

then, humanely speaking, that it is not too much to aver that, in the

Fourth and Fifth Centuries it was the Christian Church that saved

Christianity
;

that it was the Christian Church, with its institutions,

its magistrates, its authority—the Christian Church, which struggled so
vigorously to prevent the interior dissolution of the (Roman) empire,

which struggled against the barbarian, and which, in fact, overcame the

barbarian, it was this, the Church, I say, that became the great con-

necting link—the principle of civilization between the Roman and the
barbarian world.”—Guizot’s Civilization in Modern Europe, p. 51.

Section 4.—THE VITAL BOND THAT BINDS AMERICAN LIB-
ERTY AND CIVILIZATION TO THE WORK OF THE ROMAN CATH-
OLIC CHURCH. This principle, which, speaking from a humaq stand-

point, the Roman Catholic Church saved from destruction in the Fourth

and Fifth Centuries from the forces of barbarism, is the vital bond that

binds American liberty and civilization to the work of the Roman Cath-

olic Church. Without the basal principle of Christianity American civil-

ization could not and would not exist. Without the vital power of

Christianity there can neither be freedom nor improvement. There is

not a free and civilized country existing save those whose religion is the

religion of Jesus Christ. Had barbarism conquered and barbarians and

heathen continued to live and rule in England, then our British-American

forefathers who settled this country, would have been infidels and un-

believers, and Americans would have been heathen and barbarians.

Heathenism and barbarism have never produced a free country. Then,

“let us briefly run over the advantages which it (the Christian Church

—

then the Roman Catholic Church) introduced into it— (modern Civiliza-
tion). And, first, it was of immense advantage to European civilization

that a moral influence, a moral power, resting entirely on moral convic-

tions, upon moral opinions and sentiments—should have established itself
in society, just at the period (the Fifth Century), when it seemed upon

the point of being crushed by the overwhelming physical force that had



6

taken possession of it. Had not the Christian Church at this time existed,

the whole world must have fallen a prey to mere brute force. The Chris-

tian Church alone possessed a moral power. It maintained and pro-

mulgated the idea of a precept, of a law superior to all human authority

;

it proclaimed that great truth which forms the only foundation of our

hope for humanity: namely, that there exists a law above all human law,

which, by whatever name it may be called, whether reason, the law of

God, or what not, is, in all times and all places, the same law under

different names.”

—

Guizot’s Civilization in Modern Europe.

Sectiox 5.—THE BENEFITS WHICH FOLLOW FROM CHRIS-
TIANITY THAT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH PRESERVED,
PERVADE EVERY BRANCH OF AMERICAN SOCIETY AND INTER-
ESTS. The blessings and benefits that follow in the path of this Chris-

tianity which the Roman Catholic Church preserved from destruction in

the Fourth and Fifth Centuries of the Christian era, pervade every branch

of American society and every avenue of its multitudinous interests. “It

has sanctified all moral thought,” says Professor John Wilson. “When,”

writes Guizot, the eminent French historian and philosopher, “every part

of society fell a prey to violence (after the fall of the Roman Empire),

the Church could scarcely hope altogether to escape. To save herself,

she announced a principle, which had already been set up, though vaguely

under the empire

—

the separation of spiritual and temporal power, and

their mutual independence.” This then, this wholesome doctrine of the

United States of America—a free Church—was the rehabilitation, if not
the very creation, of the Roman Catholic Church. The Christian Church

has been always the pioneer of independent thought and the blazing

torch of human liberty. It must be remembered in the darkest ages of

the world the members of the Roman Catholic Church were the torch-

bearers of the flambeau of moral and civil liberty. This principle was

adopted by the founders of the American Republic—its laws and ethics
were laid deep in the basal principles of the Christian religion; but the

Church and the State were legally separate—each enjoying its special
powers and each working out its own destiny—the one national and
temporal

;
the other spiritual and eternal. Roman Catholics gave in

Maryland the first practical example that embodies this principle. To

enumerate the benedictions that Christianity has conferred upon man-

kind in general and the American nation in particular is to recount the

sum of blessings we enjoy as citizens of this free Republic which Roman

Catholics in the past and trying ages of the Church and civilization saved

for us and bequeathed to us as an immeasurable legacy of indescribable

advantages. Christianity has accentuated and created the moral thought

of the people of the United States. Its ethics is the standard of right in

the American Republic. This Christianity laid the foundation of the

independent investigation of all subjects, both public and private, that

pervade American opinion and principles, for from the Christian Church



sprang the pioneers of free and untrammelled research and unfettered and

unbiased conviction. Christianity has ameliorated and improved the con-

ditions of life in the American Union and is in vital operation for still

further betterment of the civil, social and political complexion of our

citizenship. The Christian pulpit has been the champion of civilization,

and nowhere more so than in the United States
;
the Church has been

and still is the implacable enemy of slavery and the insistent advocate

of peace; it promotes progress throughout the Union as it has done in

every age of the world
;

it has reformed punishments and ameliorated

the horrors of war. The Church—the Christian Church—is the main
instrument of American civilization. She receives the evil into her bosom

and instructs them in the way of righteousness. She is the only pillar

of real civilization. This Church has benefitted all human affairs in our

favored land, and without it and the Christianity it represents, the insti-

tutions of our country would be destroyed and the very supports of

government would totter and fall. This priceless heritage of Christianity

which was giveii to us by our American forefathers, was preserved to

them by the fidelity to the faith “once for all delivered to the saints,” by

the Roman Catholic Church in the hour of its peril and danger.

Section 6.—THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH PRESERVED THE
ARTICLES OF FAITH OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. At this period,
the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, in which the Church was struggling with

barbarism for its very physical existence, the Roman Church was not

only bearing the brunt of the battle with heathenism, but, internally, it

was fighting within the Church itself for its religious principles and its

articles of faith. Pope S. Innocent, with all of the Western Church, stood

bravely by S. Jean Chrysostom in the persecutions which he suffered

because he sought to repress evils amongst the clergy, vices in the laity,

and the vulgar fashions of the times amongst the women of this momentous

Fifth Century. It did more. It repudiated the heresies of Coelestius,

A. B. 410, who, amongst other errors, held that Adam would have died

whether he had sinned or not, and that there was no hereditary taint of

sin in the offspring of Adam. In 482, the Roman Church opposed the

effort of the Emperor Zenon to dictate to the Church the doctrines of

its faith—the first sovereign to attempt this subversion of the right of
the Church to settle the dogmas of its belief. In this era the King

of France was converted—the first prince to wear the title of “King
most Christian.” It is a universal custom amongst Protestants to char-

acterize the special articles of the Roman Catholic Church, to which they

do not assent, as “the errors of Rome.” No exception can be taken to

this statement of their belief. Men are not only entitled to their honest

opinions, but they have a right to express them if the announcement of

them be clothed in language parliamentary inspired and vitalized by Chris-

tian thought and charity. Yet, while this criticism is made, to obtain

the other point of view would it not be well for American Protestants,



8

at least, to stop to consider what errors from which the Roman Church

has saved their Christianity, and upon what common grounds they both

stand in their mutual belief in one Lord, one faith and one baptism? The

Roman Church condemned in the counsel of Ephesus in the Fifth Cen-

tury, the errors of Nestorios, who held there were two separate persons

in the Saviour
;
it opposed the fraud of Mahometism

;
in the same century

it attacked the doctrines of the Monothelites, who denied the dual nature

of the Saviour; it opposed and refused to accept the belief of the Greek

Church that the Holy Spirit proceeds alone from the Father. It has

contended against a host of errors. It denounced Menandre, A. D. 74, a

Samaritan, who adopted the errors of Simon the Magician and of the

Nicolatines. This heretic affirmed that the world had been created by

angels and sought himself to pass for the Saviour of the elect. This

Church had to meet the dangerous theories of Saturnin, who denied the

rite of marriage and generation. It struggled against and never accepted

the doctrines of Basilide, A. D. 105, who denied the crucifixion and held

that the Saviour was not exposed to death. It rejected the theories of

Elxai, who held that a Christian should dissumulate to escape persecu-

tion, and who also promulgated the doctrine that the three persons of

the Divinity were material divinities. This Church escaped the startling

doctrines of Cardon and Marcion, A. D. 141, who held that there were

two principles—the one good, the father of Jesus Christ, who, according
to them, was never incarnate; the other principle bad, author of the

Judaic law, and creator of the world. The Roman Catholic has repudi-

ated the strange doctrine of Appelles, disciple of Marcion, A. D. 175, who,

amongst other absurdities, proclaimed that Jesus Christ himself was

formed of a body of parts of all the skies through which he had passed

in descending upon the earth, and that, in returning, he had given to

each sky that which he had taken. These are but a part of the danger-

ous errors and hurtful schisms that the Roman Church has refused to

accept, and has denounced and anathematized, and by this action it has

handed down to American Protestanism its doctrines free of these grave

and blasphemous tenets and schismatic principles. This Church has

done more. Whatever errors Rome may have accepted, according to the

belief of Protestanism, it will be acknowledged that it has done a phe-

nomenal and magnificent work for the Christian Church alone in the act

of preserving, all through the centuries of its existence, the pure and

central doctrines of Christianity, in saving it in all its healthy verbiage

and clarion sentences the Apostles’ Creed in its entirety—that splendid
exegesis of belief on which all Christian Churches unite as the one holy

bond of a common faith, rivet of love, and basis of brotherhood through-

out all Christendom. This unmeasured blessing to the Christian Church,

in its universality, is another lien of gratitude that Protestant Americans

owe, in their civic aggregation, to their Roman Catholic brethren, for

this uniform doctrine of a united religious belief is the strongest cord



9

of nationality of the many ties that bind together the broad American
Union. A common religion makes a common patriotism.

Section 7.—IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH THE TREE OF
LIBERTY TOOK ROOT AND SPREAD ITS FRUITS THROUGHOUT
THE CIVILIZED WORLD. Superficial investigation is wont to ascribe
to the Roman Catholic Church all attempts and every success at, and in,
the suppression of individual conscience and personal liberty. In the very

bosom of the Catholic Church the tree of liberty took root and spread its

branches, and shed its fruits throughout the whole civilized world. .In

the pale of the Roman Church in every age of its existence were men of
piety, virtue and learning. Monsieur Guizot, the eminent French philoso-

pher and historian, whom we have quoted previously, has aptly described
the process by which the Christian Church became the parent of freedom.
It taught obedience to God as the first duty of man. This inevitably led
to independent individual action. “The Church,” says Monsieur Guizot,

“then, by the very nature of its undertaking (to govern human thought,
human liberty, private morals, and individual opinions), combined with
the nature of some of its principles upon which its government was
founded, stood in great peril of tyranny, of an illegitimate employment
of force. In the meantime, this force was encountered by a resistance
within the Church itself, which it could never overcome. Human thought
and liberty, however fettered, however confined for room and space in
which to exercise their faculties, oppose with so much energy every
attempt to enslave them, that their reaction makes even despotism itself
yield, and give up something every moment. This took place in the very
bosom of the Christian Church. We have seen heresy proscribed—the
right of inquiry condemned

;
a contempt shown for individual reason, the

principle of the imperative transmission of doctrine by human thought
established. And yet where can we find a society in which individual
•reason more boldly developed itself than in the Church? What are sects
and heresies, if not the fruit of individual opinion? These sects, these
heresies, all these oppositions that arose in the Christian Church, are the

most decisive of proofs of the life and moral activity which reigned within
her—a life stormy, painful, sown with perils, with errors and crimes

—

yet splendid and mighty, and which has given place to the noblest develop-
ments of intelligence and mind.” In the Roman Catholic Church were
these wonderful works of moral and spiritual advancement wrought, and
in her bosom, following the very bent of its teachings that obedience to

God was the highest law and only righteous rule of life, were found, and
out of its fold came those brave spirits who led these hegiras of inde-
pendent thought. They were loyal Roman Catholics. They had been
taught by their Church to be true and faithful to their God. These
instructions led them sometimes farther than the ecclesiastics intended.
Yet they were her children—born of her instructions. The Church had
inspired them to think independently and to act individually, and thus



10

to keep alive in their quenchless blaze the fires of human freedom. The

Christian Church—yea, the Roman Catholic Church—was the schoolmaster
of liberty. The Roman Church alone, in the long centuries when human

rights were struggling for existence, was, in the whole world, the single

ark of hope that carried the spark of liberty, smouldering though it might

be, yet alive in its bulwarks, one day to break forth from the clouds of dark-

ness and oppression that surrounded it, into the full sunlight of freedom.

This is the Church from which American Protestantism has descended.

Thus, by its unbroken chain, liberty came down to them freighted with

all of its precious principles from the Roman Church to our English fore-

fathers, and thence, to our ancestors, the founders of the American

Republic.

Section 8.—THIS CHRISTIANITY WHICH THE ROMAN CATHO-
LIC CHURCH PRESERVED TO MANKIND CARRIES WITH IT IN-
NUMERABLE PHYSICAL BLESSINGS. The American people owe their
strong vitality, nationally and individually, to their observance of the

laws and principles inculcated by Christianity. This civilization and this

improvement in hygienic methods and moral conduct that Christianity

inculcates and which form the basal rules of sanitation and morality

were saved to mankind by the Roman Catholic Church when it conquered

barbarism. This religion carried with it physical benefits to all who

embraced it. It set the standards of hygiene and the rules of right

throughout the world. Health and morality are inseparable. It is im-

possible to develop the strongest physiques and the highest humanity

except under the fructifying influences of a Christian sun. These bene-

ficial influences of this potential orb of power, health and happiness have

been bequeathed to us by the Roman Catholic Church. History and

science unite to declare in uncompromising terms that the health of the

body and the sanitation of the mind are indissolubly connected and that

there can be no real religion that does not benefit the physical nature of

man. A young man was in a hospital recovering from the effects of a
broken bone. A conversation arose on the subject of religion. “The young
man said that both his father and mother were religious, but he did not

take much stock in such matters. The physician in charge of his case

said : ‘Well, you ought take stock in such matters, for you are right

now reaping the benefit of the religious life of your parents. Your bones

have knitted nicely and you have made rapid advancement towards re-

covery because you have inherited from your godly parents pure blood

and a healthy constitution. Whether you own it or not, Christianity

has been a blessing to you.’” (1.) This legacy is inherited by every

American child born of healthy, religious parents. The strong, sturdy

and stalwart physiques of the American people are due to the laws of

health that they have observed, and which emanated from the principles

of Christianity. This Christianity the Roman Catholic Church preserved

for them. We have now presented the general blessings that Protestant



11

Americans have received through the work and fidelity of the Roman

Catholic Church—its hereditary bequest of Christianity; the fundamental
principles of their liberty

;
the national bond of union throughout the

Republic in the profession of the same religion; the basic principles of

our health, strength and happiness. We will now proceed to consider the
direct national benefits, conferred in an unbroken chain from the Roman

Catholic Church to our English forefathers and handed down to us

—

their children—in a continuous line of national benedictions.

(1.) Sunday School Magazine, November 16, 1913, p. 721.



12

CHAPTER TWO.

The Results of the Acts of Catholics in England That

American Protestants Have Inherited From

Their English Ancestors.

Section 1.—THE CHRISTIAN FAITH OF OUR ENGLISH FORE-

FATHERS WAS BROUGHT TO ENGLAND BY THE MISSIONARIES

OF POPE GREGORY THE GREAT. Whence came the Christian faith

of our English forefathers? This is a vital link in the historic and prac-

tical development of our American freedom and civilization, for it is very

evident from both ancient and current history, that there is a wide dif-

ference between those nations that have Christianity as their religion

and those countries that have some other form of religious belief. It has

been well said by Charles Joseph Bonaparte, of Baltimore, that “this

country is a very different one from what it would have been had it been

settled by Mohammedans.” It was the Roman Catholic Church that sent

the missionaries to England who gave its people in this epochal embassy

the light of Christian faith that led them into the path of Christian civil-

ization. It was a story of war, romance and benevolence. Green tells it

to us in his “History of the English People.” “Once,” said he, “masters

of the Britons (A. D. 547), the Bernician Englishmen turned to conquer

their English neighbors to the south—the men of Deira, whose first king,
Aella, was now sinking to the grave. The struggle filled the foreign

markets with English slaves, and one of the most memorable stories in

our history shows us a group of such captives as they stood in the market-

place of Rome, it may be in the great forum of Trajan, which still in its

decay recalled the glories of the Imperial City. Their white bodies, their

fair faces, their golden hair were noted by a deacon who passed by. ‘From

what country do these slaves come?’ Gregory asked the trader who

brought them. The slavedealer answered, ‘They are English,’ or as the

word ran in the Latin form it would bear in Rome, ‘They are Angles.’

The deacon’s pity veiled itself in poetic humor. ‘Not Angles, but angels,’

he said, ‘with faces so angel-like. From what country come they?’ ‘They

come,’ said the dealer, ‘from Deira.’ ‘De ira f” was the untranslatable

word-play of the vivacious Roman, ‘ay, plucked from God’s ire, and called

to Christ’s mercy. And what is the name of their king?’ They told him

‘Aella,’ and Gregory seized on the word as a good omen. “Alleluia shall

be sung in Aella’s land,’ he said, and passed on musing how the angel

faces should be brought to sing it.” (1.)

(1.) Green’s History of the English People, Vol. I., pages 52-3.



13

Section 2.—THE MISSIONARIES OF POPE GREGORY LAND IN

ENGLAND BRINGING THE CROSS AND CHRISTIANITY. “Years

had passed by since Gregory pitied the English slaves in the market place

of Rome. As Bishop of the Imperial City, he at last found himself in a

position to carry out his dream of winning Britain to the faith, and an

opening was given him by Aethelberht’s marriage with Bercta, a daughter

of the Frankish King, Charubert, of Paris. Bercta, like her Frankish

kindred, was a Christian
;

a Christian Bishop accompanied her from

Gaul
;
and a ruined Christian Church, the church of St. Martin beside the

royal city of Canterbury, was given them for their worship. The King

himself remained true to the gods of his fathers
;
but his marriage no

doubt encouraged Gregory to send a' Roman abbot, Augustine, at the head

of a band of monks to preach the gospel to the English people. The

missionaries landed in A. D. 597, in the Isle of Thanet, at the spot where

Hengst had landed more than a century before
;
and Aethelberht received

them sitting in the open air on the chalkdown above Minster where the

eye nowadays catches miles away over the marshes the dim tower of

Canterbury. The King listened patiently to the long sermon of Augustine

as the interpreters the abbot had brought with him from Gaul rendered

it into the English tongue. ‘Your words are fair,’ Aethelberht replied at

last with English good sense, ‘but they are new and of doubtful meaning.’

For himself, he said, he refused to forsake the gods of his fathers, but,

with the usual religious tolerance of the German race, he promised shelter

and protection to the strangers. The band of monks entered Canterbury

bearing before them a silyer cross with a picture of Christ, and singing

in concert the strains of the litany of their church. ‘Turn from this city,

O Lord,’ they sang, ‘thine anger and wrath, and turn it from Thy holy

house, for we have sinned.’ And then in strange contrast came the cry

which Gregory had wrested in prophetic earnestness from the name of the

Yorkshire king in the Roman market place, ‘Alleluia.’” (1.). Over eleven

centuries of time well may American Protestants today answer the refrain

with “Hallelujahs” that our Roman Catholic brethren and ancestors in

the Church sent their missionaries to the land of our English forefathers,

and taught them the truths of that faith which is the basis of our civil-

ization and the cornerstone of American freedom.

Section 3.—THE FATE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONAR-
IES TO ENGLAND WAS TO TREAD THE PATH OF SUFFERING
AND TO FIND THE WAY TO MARTYRDOM. The benefits that Amer-
ican Protestants have received from the propagation of the Christian

faith in England by the monks of Gregory were not obtained except by

the highway of suffering and through the road to martyrdom. A year
had passed when Aethelberht, King of Kent, in Briton, was converted

to the Christian faith. The new belief of the King rapidly spread amongst

(1.) Green’s History of the English People, Yol. I., pages 56-7.



14

his people. Yet persecution was at hand. During the wars waged by

the rulers of the several kingdoms that then comprised England, in the

year 607, Aethelfrith of Northumberland marched upon Chester. Hard

by the city 2,000 monks were established in one of the religious houses

of that day. Fasting for three days, a company of these monks, followed

the British Army to the field. Aethelfrith watched the wild gestures of

the friars as they stood apart from the host with arms outstretched in

prayer, and bade his men slay them in the coming fight. His followers

told him they were not men of war. “Bear they arms, or no,” replied

the King, “they war against us when they cry to their God.” In the rout

that ensued the monks were the first to fall. Where these priests did

not perish in their appointed places, they suffered persecution for their

labors and religion, for Woden and Thunder—the gods of the English
people—did not topple without shaking the ground beneath them. The
Catholic propagandists of Christianity found that the first waves of

prosperity and advancement were succeeded by the recession of adversity,

and, in Kent, the very alpha of the new religion, a reaction commenced

with the death of Aethelberht. Sanctuaries were not respected. The

young kings of the East-Saxons burst one day into the church where the

Bishop of London was administering the eucharist, exclaiming: “Give

us that white bread you gave to our father Saba,” and when he refused,

they drove him from their realm.

Section 4.—NEITHER OPPOSITION, PERSECUTION NOR MAR-
TYRDOM DETERRED THE ROMAN PRIESTS FROM PRESERVING
CHRISTIANITY TO BRITON. Mercia became, upon a sudden, the

champion of the old heathen religion. The two contending forces of

spiritual warfare—Christianity and heathenism—met in battle array, and
when Eadwine, the Christian convert, had fallen from his throne, and

Cadwallon, on the “Heaven Field,” was slain with the promise on his

lip, if victorious in battle, to become a Christian, the church’s

Xiower was checked
;
but the Irish missionaries of the Roman Church

invading Northern England kept the vestal lamps still lighted and the

smoking altars of Christianity yet burning. Ireland, at this time Catholic

Ireland, was the home of learning and the repository of Christian vitality.

Free from the pollution of the invader, the truths of the faith flourished

and produced the fruits of holy living and aggressive promotion of the

vital tenets of religion. “Christianity was received there with a burst

of popular enthusiasm, and letters and arts sprang up rapidly in its train.

The science and biblical knowledge which fled from the continent took

refuge in its schools. The new Christian life soon beat too strongly to

brook confinement wfithin the bounds of Ireland itself. Patrick, the first

missionary of the island, had not been a half century dead when Irish

Christianity flung itself with fiery zeal into battle with the mass of

heathenism which was rolling in upon the Christian world.” Irish mis-

sionaries labored among the Piets of the Highlands, with the Frissians of



15

the northern seas, in Burgundy and the Apennines, and in the Canton of

St. Gall. It seemed for a while that Irish Christianity, with its head

located on the famous island of Columba, and not Roman, was to give the

tone and color to the belief of the church. Yet English faith, inspired

and originating from the devotion and propagation of the Roman mis-

sionaries, was not defunct. With a deathless energy the priests and the

people upheld the dogmas and doctrines of their Lord and Master.

Persecution could not quench, nor martyrdom destroy, nor opposition sup-

press them. Like many a question where right and righteousness have

bqen dependent on the issue involved in an appeal to arms, the test

came, in 655, when the arbitrament of battle decided which of the two

religions was, hereafter, to be the faith of Briton. It was then the Pagan

clan of Mercia, led by Penda, met on the field of Winwaed, the hosts of

Oswiu, of Northumbria. It was a struggle for political power—yet
beneath these waving standards of the armed knights of England the

banner of the cross was unfolded and its fate was in the balance. Witn

offerings of peace and the blandishments of presents the Northumbrians

sought to avert the attacks of Penda. Costly gifts and dazzling ornaments

were in vain. Would it be impious to say that the hand of God was

working in history, when Penda refused the offerings of his enemy?

“If,” then cried Oswiu at the disdain of the foe, “the pagans will not

accept them, let us offer them to One that will.” Thereupon Oswiu made

a vow, that, if successful, he would dedicate his daughter to God, and

endowT a dozen monasteries in his kingdom. Victory came to Oswiu.

Penda fell in battle. The cause of Christ triumphed. The Mercians fled

across the swollen river. The scattered fragments of th^ heathen soldiery

were swept down its current and with them wTent to destruction the

religion of the older gods of England, and the religion of the monks of

Gregory became the faith of our forefathers, to gather in strength and

purpose with every advancing century and to enlarge the ideas of mankind

and of the Englishmen in particular as to rights of men and their privi-

leges in civil government. We shall see this result and learn how Catho-
lics of England acted when the test came nearly six: centuries later at

Runnymede.

Section 5.—THE CATHOLIC AND THE MAGNA CHARTER.
Stephen Langston, Archbishop of Canterbury, a Catholic prelate, and

William, Earl of Pembroke, were the conspicuous leaders in the revolt of

the Barons, and Catholic Barons, top,_w’ho, at the head of “the Army of

God and the Holy Holy Church,” on the 15th day of June, in the year of

our Lord, 1215, compelled King John of England at Runne-med
—

“the mead

of Council”—to sign the Magna Charta of English liberties—a bill of
rights which Anglo-Americans inherited from their English forefathers

who have bequeathed them these liberties secured by the blood and brawn

of their ancestors in arms against their despotic rulers. Let us reanimate

our loyalty to truth and rejuvenate our respect and veneration for the



16

great Catholic leaders who were in the forefront in this contest for

English freedom. From his fortress marched John with his attendants.

From the mighty, throbbing heart of the City of London sallied forth the

army of the barons. The bowmen and the archers of sturdy countenances

and stalwart frames, the plumed knight on his caparisoned steed, the

heralds, the squires and the yeomen made a striking spcetacle in the

glory of a summer morning. In the midst of the Runnymede lay a little

island. Today this vernal gem in the historic river pictures peace and

prosperity. At this notable period in English annals, on one side of the

stream rose a low line of hills
;
on the other stretched a long level plain.

Here was the assembly of the people—represented by their brave barons,
their highest lord spiritual, the Archbishop of Canterbury—the chief
dignitary of the Catholic Church in England, and a delegation of the

citizens of London. There was doubtless there the Enslaved villein of

the soil of the neighborhood—amazed and wondering whether the chains
of his bondage were to be broken in this struggle between king and

barons—it may well be imagined that here were the long retinue of camp
followers who always trail the brave to, but never into the field of battle,

gathered around the borders of the martialed ranks. The quest and

query for news ran undoubtedly through all the vast throngs of sub-

ordinates while their chieftains conferred upon the momentous plans of

settlement of differences that divided them into two opposing factions.

Vainly did John offer his compromises to his immovable barons. One

after another of them was rejected and he had, at last, to meet the

ordeal presented to him of guaranteeing under his own signature the

liberties of the people of England. These proffers had been to refer the

matters in dispute between them to the Pope alone. This was refused.

Catholics though they were, they declined to submit their temporal rights to

the Lord spiritual and supreme of the Church. Then, the offer to send

the dispute to a bench composed of four men selected by John and four

by the Barons was declined.

Without an army to support his claims, and with but seven knights as

his paltry following, the King stood face to face with his uncompromising

enemies. They encamped apart as foes. After a few days devoted to

the debates, John, with a sudden readiness, provocative of surprise, if not

distrust amongst the barons, signed and sealed the great charter of

English rights. As he did, “on the one side stood Fitzwalter and the

majority of the barons and the nobility of England
;
on the other sat the

King, accompanied by eight bishops, Pandaulf, the Papal envoy, and

fifteen gentlemen. These attended as his hasty conferees ; but the hostile

sentiments of the many were equally known to him and his opponents.

Agreeing to disband his foreign officers and following, the King was at

the mercy entirely of the barons, who, having before defied his unlawful

authority, now that he had signed the great bill of rights and agreed

to disband his foreign forces, renewed their fealty to him as



17

King, and, in their turn, ^received from him again their estates and

honors.” A Catholic archbishop, Catholic barons and Catholic laymen

were .on the people’s side in this sublime contest for, and triumph of,

liberty, and that, too, in the very teeth of Papal favoritism for John, and

these same Catholics defied later the efforts of the Pope in the strenuous

assistance that he gave to the
#

cause of the King. The provisions of this

charter, wherever they are applicable, are part and parcel of the reserved

and fundamental rights of the American people. They became theirs

from the valor and courage of Roman Catholics. Here will be antici-

pated an objection that will undoubtedly be raised—that, as the Pope
opposed the granting of the charter and assisted John afterward to avoid

its effects, the action of the barons must not be attributed to Catholics.

All of the foes of John were Catholics, and the fact that they were alsc

meets another cruel and unwarranted charge often made—much tnrougn
paucity of information and more still from animosity—that the Catholic
citizen is in vassaiage in his political principles, in whatever land and

under whatever flag he may dwell, and in his national conduct, to the

orders of his clergy and the supreme head of his church, since those

Catholics who espoused at Runnemede the side of the people did it

regardless of the censures of the ecclesiastics and the thunders of the

bulls of the Pope. So, for his country has the Catholic stood in every

age of the Church, whether for his native land or his adopted home, in

all hours of its jeopardy and danger, regardless of inducements from

temporal or ecclesiastic sources for him to abandon his love of his

fireside and his fidelity to his nation and to depart from his God-given

instinct of patriotism.

Section 6.—RIGHTS BEQUEATHED TO AMERICAN CITIZENS
THAT ROMAN CATHOLICS OBTAINED FOR OUR ENGLISH FORE-
FATHERS. It is refreshing and strengthening for freemen to return to

the fountains of their liberties and drink again inspiration from the

noble and daring deeds of their ancestors who bequeathed to them their

precious rights, and from whom they inherited their love of law and

constitutional government. In returning to the greatest of all compen-

diums of written privileges and fundamental principles of English and

American liberties, the Magna Charta, for all Americans inherited every

right that belonged to Englishmen and shared in every beam of glory in

English history from the beginning of the existence of the English

people to July 4, 1776, one may read in this charter of freedom the great

doctrines that Roman Catholic priests, Roman Catholic lords and laymen

obtained from King John at Runnemede.

Preceding all grants, and ringing with the clear notes of freedom

above all other privileges, King John declared to his accusers and the

defenders of their own freedom

:

“First—We have granted to God, and by this our present charter
have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs forever, that the Church of England



18

shall he free, and shall have her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable.

We have granted also, and have given to all Freemen of our Realm, for

Us and our Heirs forever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to

hold to them and their heirs, of Us and our Heirs forever.”

Amongst these under-written liberties were

:

“No Man shall be distrained to do more Service for a Knight’s fee,

nor any Freehold, than therefore is due.”

“If we be out of this Realm, our Chief Justices shall send our

Justicers through every County once in the year
;
which with the Knights

of the Shires shall take the said Assises in those Counties
;
and those

things that, at the coming of our aforesaid Justices being sent to take

those Assises in the Counties, cannot be determined, shall be ended by

them in some other place in their Circuit
;
and those things, which for

difficulty of some Articles cannot be determined by them, shall be referred

to our Justices of the Bench, and there shall be ended.”

“A freeman shall not be amerced for a small fault, but after the

manner of the Fault, and for a great Fault, after the greatness thereof.”

“No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his

Freehold, or Liberties, or Free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any

otherwise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him;
but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land, We will

sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or

Right.”

These are shining examples of a legion of inalienable rights that the

Roman Catholic clergymen, Roman Catholic barons, and Roman Catholic

laymen forced unwilling King John to grant and certify to his English

subjects—privileges that all American citizens enjoy, in their kind and
suitability to their situation today, in free America, and which is one of

the prime factors in the sum total of the debt of gratitude they owe

their Roman Catholic brethren.

Section 7.—ROMAN CATHOLICS FACED PAPAL CENSURE TO
BE TRUE TO THEIR COUNTRY AND LIBERTIES. When John, King
of England, had signed the Magna Charta and had repudiated his own act,

there arose a condition in England in which the lords temporal and

spiritual, the laymen and the clergy had to choose between the King and

the Pope upon one side and the country and their freedom on the other.

Hume, in his history of England, (1.), (Yol. I., pages 434-5), tells this

story of what followed

:

“Innocent (the Pope), considering himself as feudal lord of the king-

dom, was incensed at the temerity of the barons, who. though they pre-

tended to appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his

consent, to impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the

Roman pontiff his crown and independence, had placed himself imme-

diately under the papal protection. He issued, therefore, a bull, in which

from the plenitude of his apostolic power and from the authority which



19

God had committed to him, to build up and destroy kingdoms, to plant

and overthrow, he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust

in itself, and obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the apostolic

see. He prohibited the barons from exacting the observance of it; he

even prohibited the King himself from paying any regard to it
;
he

absolved him and his subjects from all oaths which they had been con-

strained to take to that purpose; and he pronounced a general sentence

of excommunication against every one who should persevere in main-

taining such treasonable and iniquitous pretensions.

“The King, as his foreign forces arrived along with the bull, now

ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the Pope’s decree,

recalled all the liberties he had granted to his subjects, and which he had

solemnly sworn to observe. But the spiritual weapon was found upon

trial to carry less force with it than he had reason from his own experi-

ence to apprehend. The primate ( the Archbishop of Canterbury),

refused to obey the Pope in publishing the sentence of excommunication

against the barons; and though he was cited to Rome, that he might

attend a general council there assembled, and was suspended, on account

of his disobedience to the Pope and his secret correspondence with the

King’s enemies; though a new and particular sentence of excommuni-

cation was pronounced by name against the principal barons, John still

found that his nobility and people, and even his clergy, adhered to the

defence of their liberties, and to their combination against him
;

the

sword of his mercenaries was all he had to trust to for restoring his

authority.”

/



20

CHAPTER THREE.

The Catholic in the Time of Henry The Eighth Was Loyal

To His Country and Faithful To His Church.

Section 1.—THE SEPARATION OF THE CHURCHES OF ENG-
LAND AND ROME. The marital affairs of Henry the Eighth consum-
mated the separation of the Churches of England and Rome

;
but, long

before and far beyond this question, there were issues between the two

powers that opened the breach that finally led to dissolution of the ties

of union. There were clerical abuses. Englishmen desired to reform

them. The opposition to ecclesiastical wrongs gave Henry his vantage

ground in combating the Pope when he sought his support to invalidate

his marriage with Catherine of Arragon. This antagonism to clerical

abuses arose with men who were Catholics themselves. They sought the

reformation of unlawful impositions. They did not desire the separation

of Church and State. Church, canons and Churchmen were combined to

preserve order and liberty. The fear of kings, the tyranny of power, and

the inability or unwillingness of the people of England to combat their

powerful sovereign led them on, step by step, to a complete disruption

with the Roman See. They had not desired this at the inception of the

struggle between Henry and the Pontiff. The Church, the canons and

churchmen in those times were Catholic. By their instructions to their

flock the pulpits of the Church had taught men to cultivate the sense of

right; by their courage the canons had held to the theory and practice

that they could legislate on Church affairs without interference from any

source
;
Churchmen were inspired to believe, and to act upon, the prin-

ciple that their duty was first of all to their God. These ideas And

elementary doctrines kept alive the spirit of liberty amongst Englishmen,

and supported and hastened the march of progress and freedom. The

Church—the Catholic Church of England—was necessarily the very cradle
of liberty itself. It is impossible to read English history and not to see

that within the Church, by its very fundamental theories of individual

responsibility and its advocacy of moral right, the principles of consti-

tutional liberty were kept alive, and that the Christian Church was the

sole element of opposition that offered any barrier to royal tyranny. It

only was able to furnish an organized act or to restrain regal wrong.

This Church was sometimes overcome for a time by the potential forces

that opposed it. Yet it always rallied from defeat. The legislation and

the exactions of Henry’s reign were not always levelled against the head

of the Roman Church. He struck vigorous and sometimes unjust blows

against the religious organizations of his own realm.



21

Revolutions never go backward. The revolt against local usurpations

soon went beyond the desires and the conceptions of those who wished

to suppress wrongs, and the Catholics of England saw their loyalty to

their country and its rights turned into an attack on the Church itself,

and these assaults were made to further the plans of those who desired

the separation of England and Rome in their spiritual affairs. Indeed,

it was the loyalty of Roman Catholics to their country that enabled Henry,

ugainst their own wishes, to successfully break the ties that bound the

Sees of Rome and Canterbury together. They, the Catholics, with all

England, resented the interference of Charles of Spain, a foreigner, in

the affairs of their nation in opposing the divorce of Catherine and

Henry, and they linked the Emperor’s antagonism to Henry’s desires with

the opposition of the Pope. Hence, the complacency with which many

Englishmen viewed the fateful controversy between the two sovereigns

—

one temporal of England and the other spiritual of western Christendom.

These disintegrating contests kept in the minds of men the ideals of

right and wrong; the principles of freedom and slavery; the antagonism

of law and oppression; the antithesis of peace and conflict. The most

conspicuous martyr on the altar of conscience—Sir Thomas More—who,
in the brutal and lawless reign of Henry the Eighth, gave his life for his

religious loyalty, was foremost and unyielding for his country and its

rights
;
and equally uncompromising—even unto death—in his belief that

the Bishop of Rome was the real and spiritual head of the whole Christian

Church.

The Catholic supported then in those fateful days the cause of his

country and was loyal to its interests in the midst of a revolution that

took from his spiritual sovereign right and privilege in rapid and be-

wildering succession until the very headship of the church in England

was wrested from him, and a new and hitherto unauthorized authority

and personage set up in his place. The Roman Catholic had much to

test and sever even his fealty in that stormy era before the final stroke

came that made him either accept a new church establishment or be a

traitor “in the eyes of the law” to his country.

Before the question of Henry’s divorcement had been finally acted

upon many violent acts had been passed against the powers of the Pope

and the interests of the English clergy. In 1532 Parliament enacted a law

against the levying of annates of the first fruits, being a year’s rent of

all bishoprics that fell vacant—a tax that had been imposed by the Court
of Rome for granting bulls to the new prelates. This tax amounted to

heavy sum. It took all the revenues of the bishopric for the first year

from the incumbent and gave them to the Pope. Parliament then further

voted, and this, too, while yet the Pope was the spiritual head of the

English church, that any censures which should be inflicted by the Court

of Rome on account of the passage of an act to reduce to five per cent,

all claims on the episcopal benefits, “should be entirely disregarded, and



22

that mass should be said and the sacraments administered as if no such

censures had been issued.”

The story of Henry the Eighth’s effort to have the Court of Rome

approve his design of separating from Catherine in order to marry Anne

Boleyn was long and shameful. Whilst the measures of retribution that

Henry employed to force Clement into acquiescence with his wishes were

confined to matters within the realm and were appurtenant and apper-

tained to civil government, the people of England, of every creed, sup-

ported these severe measures, but there came a period when men of

conscience had to divide. The Catholic must, at last, chose between

royal usurpation of spiritual authority and his fealty to his God, his

conscience and his church. It was an ordeal of death or life
;
of manhood

or cowardice; of treason to duty or martyrdom for his faith.

The shifting scenes of the portentous religious drama moved with

wondrous rapidity. They were goaded on by the strongest of human

passions—the love for woman. Henry the Eighth at the head of the
religious movement that separated England and Rome, whatever may

be the individual thought on the question of a united Church and State,

was, and always will be, a lamentable picture to the human mind.

In his hate and wrath, Henry denounced and punished, for at this

time -he was sovereign of England without legislative let or judicial

hindrance, those who had obtained and submitted to the legatine Court

of Wolsey, which was made superior to the powers of Rome—a right that
this See had granted, and which tribunal Henry sanctioned as long as it

suited his purposes. No appeal was to be had from this bench to Rome

itself.

The Catholic perceived, not without apprehension, as was indicated

by the mind and act of one of its noblest spirits—within the pale of his
Church—the breach between his sovereign lord spiritual and his country
widen. He would soon be called upon to elect between them. With

philosophic foresight, brave and conscientious Sir Thomas More saw that

these inimical acts against the church and clergy led on to a break with

Rome, and to “an alteration of religion,” as he termed it, and being

opposed to these things, this just and pious seer desired to resign the

great seal. Henry was loath to part with him. Yet his king’s programme

against Rome went on to its complete conclusion. Parliament continued,

the meanwhile, to pass laws that, one by one, broke strand after strand

of the cord of political and religious alliance that bound Rome and

England together. All payments to the Apostolic Chamber, all provisions,

bulls and dispensations were abridged; monasteries were subjected to

visitations and civil government. The latter could be, and were, in some

cases, abolished. The law for punishing heretics was modified
;

the

ordinary was prohibited from impounding or trying any person upon

suspicion alone without presentment by two lawful witnesses; and it

was declared to speak against the Pope’s authority was no heresy
;
bishops



were appointed by a conge d'etre—a gift of delight—from the Crown, or
in case of the dean’s or chapter’s refusal to name, by letters patent, and

no recourse was to be had to Rome for palls, bulls or provisors. The law

relative to the payment of first fruits, heretofore’ discretionary with the

King, was now made positive.

Whatever may have been the sentiments of the loyal Roman Catholics
to these enactments of civil and semi-religious policy, they still stood, as

did Sir Thomas More, on the ground that, in purely local and secular

matters, their country’s laws were supreme; but there came a time, and

that suddenly, when they had to make another decision. Angered by his
inability to obtain a sanction from Rome of his intended injustice to his
lawful wife, Henry forced his courtiers to pronounce the marriage with

Catherine illegal al) initio, married Anne Boleyn, and had himself declared

by Parliament the head of the Church of England

!

Stirring were the events acted in these troublous times and striking

the characters who crossed the stage of action. These men are pictorial of
the times. Notable amongst these was Thomas Wolsey. Son of a butcher,
he rose to be the primate of England, the chancellor of the government,

the friend of the King, and “the power behind the throne.” “No church-

man,” says Hume, “under color of exacting respect to religion, ever
carried to a greater height the state and dignity of that character. His

train consisted of eight hundred servants, of whom many were knights
and gentlemen; some even of the nobility put their children into his

family as a place of education
;
and in order to gain them favor with

their patron, allowed them to bear offices as his servants. Whoever was
distinguished by any art or science paid court to the cardinal; and none

paid court in vain. Literature, which was then in its infancy, found in
him a generous patron; and both by his public institutions and private
bounty, he gave encouragement to every branch of erudition. Not content

with this munificence, which gained him the approbation of the wise, he
strove to dazzle the eyes of the populace by the splendor of his equipage

and furniture, the costly embroideries of his liveries, the lustre of his

apparel. He was the first clergyman in England that wore silk and gold,
not only on his habit, but also on his saddles and the trappings of his

horses. He caused his cardinal’s hat to be borne aloft by a person of
rank; and when he came to the King’s chapel, would permit his cardinal’s
hat to be laid on no place but the altar. A priest, the tallest and most
comely he could find, carried before him a pillar of silver, on whose top
was placed a cross

;
but not satisfied with this parade, to which he thought

himself entitled as cardinal, he provided another priest of equal stature

and beauty, who marched along, bearing the cross of York, even in the See
of Canterbury; contrary to the ancient rule and the agreement between
the prelates of these rival sees.”

There came a day of fall to this pride. Wolsey, legate of the Pope,
cardinal of the church, ally of the King, could not obtain the consent of



24

the Roman Court to the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine.

His sovereign turned upon him.

The epitome of his life was summed up by Wolsey on his death-bed.

“Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the King,” moaned

the dying man, “he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But

this is the due reward for my pains and study, not regarding my service

to God, but only my duty to my prince.”

Sir Thomas More! Would that his fate could be erased from the

page of English history—still our own—an American legacy from our
British ancestors. Not a charge was proved against him. The wordy

and lengthy indictment with its many counts may be summarized into the

one accusation that he had sought to deprive the King of his title as the

head of the Church. This he denied. He had maintained a discreet

silence. Rich, the solicitor-general, came forward to prove that More

had said to him in the Tower that “Parliament cannot make the King

head of the Church because it is a civil tribunal without any spiritual

authority.” This More declared untrue, and attacked the credibility of

the witness. The accused did admit that he had told the King that he

did not think his marriage with Anne Boleyn lawful; but that he had

only done so when the King demanded his opinion, and it would not have

been loyal for him not to have answered when requested. The jury,

without reading the indictment, found the venerable prisoner guilty. As

soon as sentence had been pronounced, More was permitted to address

the Court. “He would now,” he declared, “openly avow what he had

hitherto concealed from every human being, his conviction that the oath

of supremacy was unlawful.” He had been informed immediately before

his trial that he could be released and be restored to royal favor by

adjuring his former opinions. He thanked the judges for the proffer

;

but declined the offered vantage and base apostacy of his convictions. He

then said that it was painful indeed to differ from the noble lords whom

he saw on the bench, “but his conscience compelled him to bear testimony

to the truth. This world, however, had always been a scene of dissen-

tion
;
and he still cherished the hope that the day would come when both

he and they, like Stephen and Saul, would be of the same sentiment in

heaven.”

As More turned from the bar, his son fell at his feet and implored

his blessing. When he walked back to the Tower, Margaret, his daughter,

rushed twice through the guards, and unable to speak, wrapped her arms

about her doomed father and bathed his face with her tears.

More had seen, when he had first entered the Tower, the multitude

below him, consisting chiefly of priests, rectors and vicars, struggling to

take the oath of the King’s supremacy over the Church, “that More found

harder than death.” More was called as the last one. He still refused it.

In July, 1535, More was executed. Before his death Bishop Fisher,

who had also been convicted of denying the King’s title as head of the



25

Church, had been executed for his opinions. This courageous man opened

the Bible that he held in his hand as he approached the scaffold. Opening

the Good Book at a venture, he read : “This is life eternal to know Thee,

the only true God.” More soon followed Bishop Fisher, with whom it

had been charged he had been in conspiracy against the King’s supremacy

in the Church. As Sir Thomas approached the moment of the descent of

the axe, he moved his beard carefully from the reach of the fatal stroke.

“Pity that should be cut,” he was heard to utter, with a strain of irony

in the sad words, “that has never committed treason.”

All England was in terror. It was the keynote of Henry’s reign.

Thought was fettered. Opinion was outlawed. Silence was wrenched

into confession by the powers of the Court. Discussion of public events

opened the pathway to the scaffold or the funeral pyre.

England heard of the death of Sir Thomas More with silence and

profound sadness. Foreign nations were loud in lamentations and denun-

ciations. The King of France protested against such executions and urged,

to Henry’s wrath, that such subjects be transported from the kingdom

and their lives spared.

Beautiful Anne Boleyn, supplanter and supplanted, maid of the queen

!

She flaunted her conquest of Henry’s affections, if they could be called

such, in the face of Catherine with such defiance that she was removed

from her court, to return soon as the chosen mistress. In turn, her day

of misery came, when convicted in a court without sufficient testimony

to sustain the charges of incest with her relatives and adultery with a

paramour, she was beheaded without pity, and her rival—Jane Seymour

—

was made the same day the bride of Henry, King of England.

Then this man—the breaker of marital ties
;
this merciless cormorant

of human lives
;
this King of England, who bore the title of “defender of

the faith”—let neither peer nor private escape his vengeance. Posing as
the advocate of orthodoxy, by example and practice he was the antitype

of the just doctrines he pretended to support. The humble schoolmaster

who had ventured to speak his mind, did not escape his fateful hand.

This was unhappy Lambert, of London. Once already in prison for

heresy and released, but hearing Dr. Taylor, bishop of London, sustain

the doctrine of the corporeal presence in the sacrament, he drew up ten

written objections to the dogma. Taylor communicated the contents of

the paper to Dr. Barnes, of London, a Lutheran minister, who, though

he believed that the elements still remained in their original state, but did

contain the real presence of our Lord, and for so holding was thereby

liable to the punishment for non-conformity to the doctrines of the Church

of England, accused Taylor to Cranmer and Latimer, and they cited the

schoolmaster to appear before them. He appealed to the King. Henry

accepted the decision of the case, provided Lambert would argue the case

with him. Henry appeared at the trial with all the dignity of royalty

about him. Lords spiritual were on his right hand, and lords temporal



26

on his left. Judges, distinguished lawyers and courtiers of honor about

him added eclat to the august assembly. In the midst of these great men

Lambert appeared to argue his case. Henry pressed Lambert with argu-

ments drawn from Scripture. Cranmer and a half-score of high prelates

followed Henry in support of the doctrine of the real presence. Five

hours the debate lasted. In the end the King asked Lambert this

momentous question: “Did he wish to die or live?” Lambert cast himself

upon the King’s mercy. He was condemned and was burned to death by

a slow fire. His last words, several times repeated, were: “None but

Christ
;
none but Christ,” and these were on his tongue when he died.

Nor least of all in singular colorings was the antithetical career of

Thomas Cromwell—soldier, chancellor, favorite, traitor. That was what
the page of his eventful life has written of him. With a youth almost

unknown and a manhood equally obscure, this son of a blacksmith rose

to power in Henry’s reign and won his place by his ability to further his

master’s designs. He it was who proposed to Henry to ignore the Court

of Rome and marry Anne Boleyn. He it was who calmly put down in

his notebook, as though he were making a memorandum to buy a chapeau,

the names of the victims he had selected to be tried and executed, and

he it was, at last, when he had offended Henry by making the alliance

which brought Henry Anne of Cleves as his wife, and drew from him in

his wrath at her uncomely appearance the declaration that she was “a

Dutch cow;” this was he who, at the end, was denounced as a traitor to

the King. He had failed to unite the German princes against the House

of Austria, whose power alone now could roll back the cause of the

reformation. With this failure, Henry, angered by the burden of his

fourth and unattractive wife, turned on him whom he had made. It

was the opportunity of the nobles. Reproaches and denunciations fell

on him from the lords at the moment of his intended arrest. The Duke

of Norfolk, selected to make the supreme act of duress, tore from Crom-

well’s neck the ensign of the garter. When the charge of treason came,

Cromwell cast his cap to the floor with a moan of despair. “This,” said

he, “is my guerdon for the services I have done. On your consciences, I

ask you, am I a traitor?” Then, suddenly, he bade his enemies to do

their work quickly and not to leave him to languish in prison. They

granted his bold request. A few days after his imprisonment he was

attainted in Parliament, and, in July, 1540, with a burst of popular

applause, Cromwell met his death on the scaffold.

Amidst these terrible and sanguinary scenes the spiritual power and

legal authority of the Roman Court over the Church in England were

transferred from Italy to Great Britain. As long as the questions before

the British nation were those of legislative and parliamentary, or even

royal government, the people of England, almost as a unit, stood with

their King and country. It was another issue when spiritual matters

were involved. Men of courage and capacity denied the right of the civil



27

arm to control religious doctrines. It was a dangerous age in which to

announce this* wholesome principle which the United States of America

has incorporated in its Constitution. Yet Catholics, Roman Catholics,

as they are oftener called, and most often with no disrespect, were our

progenitors in enunciating this unassailable dogma of both Church and

State. To the civil authorities belong the direction of civil affairs—to
the church the authority to declare the rules for the government of the

faithful, the doctrines of Christianity and the elements of its belief.

These combats of principles, these sanguinary acts, these merciless

laws were the forerunners of better things. The very opposition of the

Catholics of England to the supremacy of Henry over the Church fanned

the affairs of liberty, and the sense of the propriety of spiritual matters

being in the hands of the authorities of the Church, opened the way to

the dawn of a day of better understanding and of the enactment of

a wiser code, both in England and in America, on the question of differ-

ences in religious views. Had all Englishmen accepted the new doctrine

without objection, there would have been, without contradiction, a _ state

church in. America todaj^ The Catholics of England kept burning the

torch of religious freedom in Great Britain. "

While a majority of the people of Great Britain and most of the

English clergy acquiesced in these profound changes of polity and policy,

yet of an inevitable sequence in the composition of the minds and the

tendency of sentiments amongst the numerous Catholics of England in the

times of this religious upheaval and separation of the Church of England

from the Church of Rome, there were many conscientious men who did

not concur in the conduct of their fellow-countrymen and religious asso-

ciates. Who they were and what was the result of their adhesion to

their faith and their fidelity to their convictions is tersely told by M.

Fillassier, of the Academy Royal, in Eraste. He states : “Id, VEglise

Anglicane nous offre une multitude de martyrs qui souffrient pour la

religion avec une merveilleuse Constance. Fisher, eveque de Rochester,

et Thomas Morus, ancient chancelier, etoient a leur tete, et leur donnient

Vexample du courage.” (1.). We shall see at a later period that the
denominational descendants of these brave and faithful spirits were true

to their country as well as to their consciences at a crucial hour when

England could not have existed as a nation without their aid.

Yet, before passing to the next stage of historical inquiry in this

investigation, let us pause to present a hypothetical question.

Let us assume that combined passion and prejudice, desire for patron-

age and mistaken patriotism should unite a force sufficient to overthrow

(1.) Here, the Church of England offers us a multitude of martyrs who

suffered for their religion with a marvelous constancy. Fisher, Bishop of

Rochester, and Thomas More, ancient chancelier, were at their head, and

gave to them the example of courage. Page 572.

t



28

in the United States today the wholesome laws we have upon the legal

and corporal union of Church and State, and in their stead a provision

be made in the Federal Constitution that there should be erected a

national religious establishment with the President of the Republic as

its temporal and spiritual head, with authority to appoint its priests,

ministers and bishops, and even to declare to them by written order on

what subjects they should preach, clinched with an oath to acknowledge

this to be right. Would there be a revolt of the minority, or not? We

are sure it would never be tamely submitted to even in peaceful and

loyal America. Yet this was the situation in the time of Henry the

Eighth in England. The Roman Catholics were willing and did give the

King loyal fealty and support in all of his civil and temporal authority;.

They" "denied even unto death his right of spiritual Control over the

Christian Church. Who could have oughUbut pity, affection and admira-

tion for these courageous martyrs to their convictions? What American

can falter in his gratitude to those Christian brethren and their own

national ancestors that they kept aflame the spark of a wholesome

resistance to wrong and fanned to life the flickering rays of human

liberty that have been handed down to us—their American descendants

—

in all the effulgence of the full sunlight of American freedom?

The distinction that the Roman Catholic made in the cruel and blooc^-

stained reign of Henry the Eighth between his duty to the realm and

the King and his allegiancieTo^his'GocPand conscience were the inextin-

guishable beams of independent thought that cannot be destroyed. It

was theirs to keep them in being in a dark and perilous age. They were

more than the wrestling fires of spiritual freedom. These discriminations

between the elements of fealty to God and government were evidences

of the belief in the minds of Englishmen of their right and power to

break the fetters of kingly domination and clerical infringements, and

were the proofs of the growth of a broader spirit in the exercise of civil

authority. They became the forerunners of the birth of a nobler condi-

tion of relationship between the Church and the State. In England it

has advanced to toleration of all denominations of Christians. In America

it has created an enlightened brotherhood amongstmerCot all names who

call themselves Christians. A Catholic layman, it will be seen later in

this work, was the apostle of this new era. Under his leadership these

benign sentiments were first planted in the American colonies, and over

the Plantation of which he was the Lord Proprietary, arose the star of

hope that added another resplendent beam to the gilded day of Christian

civilization. Lord_ Baltimore, Maryland and American civil and religious

freedom are inseparable in the annals of national history and the respect

and veneration of mankind.



29

CHAPTER FOUR.

The Loyalty of English Catholics Saved England From the

Designs of Spain and Preserved Their English

Ancestry to Americans.

Section 1.—THE LOYALTY OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS

TRIED IN A NEW AND FATEFUL WAY. There came a crucial day
in the history of England when the fidelity and patriotism of her Catholic

citizen was to be tested in a new and fateful trial. He was oppressed.

He was outlawed. He was denied the right to worship God after the

manner of his fathers. The priests at his altars were driven from their

sanctuaries. His ministers suffered death for exercising their calling.

He was denied the rights of office. His children were prevented from

being educated in his faith and the ukase of law required him to worship

in the way he called heresy. At this moment the enemy appeared off the

coast of England. The Catholic was called upon to combat the invader

who came with the promise to release him from his political and religious

slavery. The banner that the foreign enemy raised in the sight of the

oppressed English Catholic was annealed and anointed with the official

benediction of the spiritual head of the Church he loved and adored. If

England had succumbed to the Spanish power, Spanish thought, Spanish

principles and Spanish progeny would have ruled the land, and, if settled

at all by Englishmen, the American colonies would have been planted

under the auspices of a Spanish dynasty, who will undertake to answer

the enigma of their destiny if these inauspicious circumstances had have

happened? We shall see how the English Catholic stood this test of his
loyalty—an ordeal fraught with unborn events in the history of the
American people.

Section 2.—THE LOYALTY OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS DE-
STROYED THE SCHEME OF PHILIP OF SPAIN TO SEIZE THE
CROWN OF ENGLAND. The English Church had separated completely
in the reign of Henry the Eighth from the Roman See. Politics and

policies of parties and government had joined in battle and had divided

Englishmen in their religious connections. It became a question whether

Englishmen and Protestantism should govern Great Britain or Spaniards

and Catholicism rule in England. On the 8th of February, 1587, Mary

Stuart died on a scaffold in the castle hall at Foreringly. With almost

her dying breath she gave a sentiment to her ladies about her, that was

calculated to arouse Catholic spirit and enthusiasm to their highest



30

points : “Do not weep for me,” she said, “I have given my word for

you.” * * * “Tell my friends,” she commanded Melville, “that I died

a good Catholic.” Elizabeth had given the order for her relative’s death,

but she had intended to stay the execution. Her zealous ministers had

the order carried out at once before royal clemency could be extended.

The bloody deed was hardly done before strongwilled Elizabeth turned

with rage upon her ministers who had pushed her to the dreadful edict.

Lord Burleigh was temporarily in disgrace, and Davidson, who was the

bearer of the death-warrant to the council, was sent to the Tower. The

removal of Mary from the dissensions of England left an open road to

the hopes of Philip of Spain to inherit the crown of England.

At this period the condition of the Catholics of England was full of

terrors and troubles. They were denounced
;
they were persecuted, and

their property was confiscated. They were as aliens and outlaws in

their own land. Mary’s death had put an end to their own political

dissensions and had united them as one concrete body. “To the Spanish

King, as to the nearest heir in blood who was of Catholic faith, Mary

bequeathed her rights to the crown, and the hopes of her more passionate

adherents were from that moment bound up in the success of Spain.

The blow, too, kindled afresh the fervor of the papacy, and Sixtus the

Fifth offered to aid Philip with money in his invasion of the heretic

realm. But Philip no longer needed pressure to induce him to act.

Drake’s triumph had taught him that the conquest of England was needful

for the security of his dominion in the New World, and for the mastery

of the seas. The presence of an English army in Flanders convinced him

that the road to the conquest of the states lay through England itself.

Nor did the attempt seem a very perilous one. Allen and his Jesuit

emissaries assured Philip that the hulk of the nation teas ready to rise

as soon as a strong Spanish force was landed on English shores. They

numbered off the great lords who would head the revolt, the Earls of

Arundel and Northumberland, who were both Catholics; the Earls of

Worcester, Cumberland, Oxford and Southampton; Viscount Montecute,

the Lords Dacres, Morley, Vaux, Wharton, Windsor, Lumley and Stourton.

‘All these,’ wrote Allen, ‘will follow our party when they see themselves

supported by a sufficient foreign force.’ Against these were only ‘the new

nobles, who were hated in the country’ and the towns. ‘But the strength

of England is not in its towns.’ All the more warlike counties were

Catholic in their sympathies
;
and the persecution of the recusants had

destroyed the last traces of their loyalty to the Queen (Elizabeth). Three

hundred priests had been sent across the sea to organize the insurrection,

and they were circulating a book which Allen had lately published ‘to

prove that it is not only lawful but our bounden duty to take up arms at

the Pope’s bidding, and to fight for the Catholic faith against the Queen

and other heretics.’ A landing in the Pope’s name would be best, but a

landing in Philip’s would be almost as secure of success. Trained as they



31

were now by Allen and his three hundred priests, English Catholics ‘would

let in Catholic auxiliaries of any nation, for they have learned to hate

their domestic heretic more than any foreign power.’****** * *
“The revolution (in France) was hardly over when, at the end of

May (1588) the Armada started from Lisbon. But it had scarcely put

to sea when a gale in the Bay of Biscay drove its scattered vessels into

Ferrol, and it was only on the 19th of July, 1588, that the sails of the

Armada were seen from the Lizard, and the English beacons flared out

their alarm along the coast. The news found England ready. An army

was mustering under Leicester and Tilbury, the militia of the midland

counties were gathering to London, while those of the south and east

were held in readiness to meet a descent on either shore. The force

which Parma hoped to lead consisted of 40,000 men, for the Armada

brought nearly 22,000 soldiers to be added to the 17,000 who were waiting

to cross from the Netherlands. Formidable as this force was, it was far

too weak by itself to do the work which Philip meant it to do. Had

Parma landed on the earliest day he purposed, he would have found a

force stronger than his own, a force, too, of men in whose ranks were

many who had already crossed pikes on equal terms with his best infantry

in Flanders. ‘When I shall have landed,’ he warned his master, ‘I must

fight battle after battle. I shall lose men by wounds and disease; I must

leave detachments behind me to keep open my communication; and in a

short time the body of my army will become so weak that not only I may

be unable to advance in the face of the enemy, and time may be given to

the heretics and your majesty’s other enemies to interfere, but there may

fall out some notable inconveniences, with the loss of everything, and I

be unable to remedy it.’ What Philip really counted on was the aid

which his army would find within England itself. Parma’s chance of

victory, if he succeeded in landing, lay in a Catholic rising. But at this

crisis patriotism proved stronger than religious fanaticism in the hearts of

the English Catholics. The news of the invasion ran like fire along the

English coasts. The whole nation answered the Queen’s appeal. Instinct

told England that its work was to be done at sea, and the royal fleet was

soon lost among the vessels of the volunteers. London, when Elizabeth

asked for fifteen ships and 5,000 men, offered thirty ships and 10,000 sea-

men, while 10,000 of its trained bands drilled in the artillery ground.

Every seaport showed the same temper. Coasters put out from every

little harbor. Squires and merchants pushed off in their own little barks

for a brush with the Spaniards. In the presence of the stranger all

religious strife was forgotten. The work of the Jesuits was undone in

an hour. Of the nobles and squires whose tenants were to muster under

the flag of the invader, not one proved a traitor. The greatest lords

on Allen’s list of Philip’s helpers, Cumberland, Oxford and Northumber-

land, brought their vessels up alongside of Drake and Howard as soon



as Philip’s fleet appeared in the channel. The Catholic gently, who had

been painted as longing for the coming of the stranger, led their tenantry,

when the stranger came, to the muster of Tilbury. The Joyaltji^j4^th€

Catholics decided the fate of Philip's scheme.” (1.).

Religious rancor and partisan spirit had melted in the presence of the

common enemy like snow before the summer sun. Patriotism and country

lifted their heads above the din of churchly contention. The Catholic and

Protestant were alike Englishmen and enemies of the invader.

Section 3.—THE INVALUABLE RESULTS TO AMERICANS THAT

WERE THE SEQUENCES OF CATHOLIC LOYALTY IN QUEEN
ELIZABETH’S REIGN. Neither the power of the Pope, the battalions

of Philip, nor the persecutions of their own people broke the tie of loyalty

that bound the Catholics of England to their native land. Their fidelity

saved English liberty as the priceless heritage to British-Americans, who in

their day, bequeathed this diadem of happiness to their American pos-

terity. Had English Catholics turned traitors in that hour of their coun-

try’s peril and danger when the Spanish-Armada appeared off the Coast

of England, a different government in England and another element in

civilization would have followed the consequences of their defection.

Spanish bigotry and Spanish fanaticism would have broken the bonds of

the free constitution of England, and its laws would have been colored

with their baneful influences, and English usages and customs would have

been changed to the intolerent practices of a fierce and dogmatic race.

The polluted stream would have followed the current of emigration to

America, and an antithesis of the thought, life and government which we

now enjoy and which our forefathers brought with them from England from

their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, would now tincture the current of public

and private life of the people of the United States, and a very different

mind, purpose and principle would animate us from that which inspires

the favored citizenship of the American Republic.

History answers how this would have affected the laws, the govern-

ment and the privileges ^_of colonial Americans. Spanish tenets would

have prevailed, and America could not have been the free country that

she now is, for her whole individual and national life would have been

tinctured by the fountains from which they flowed. Let us ponder what

the English Catholics did in this trying hour of their painful ordeal, and.

as we contemplate, let American Protestants heed the lesson and its

sequence, and learn what part of our great national debt to their Catholic

brethren came from their action when the ships of Philip of Spain men-

aced the life and liberties of the English Empire—our own “mother coun-
try”—for the Catholics saved England.

Section 4.—THE LOYALTY OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS DIS-
PLAYED UNDER UNTOWARD CIRCUMSTANCES. Had the English

(1.) Green’s English People, Yol. 3, pages 318-319.



33

Catholics been freemen of England when Philip invaded it, and had they

been sharing in all of the benefits of this free land and its splendid consti-

tution that their Protestant fellow-citizens enjoyed, there • would have

been no merit in their loyalty to their country, and in their patriotism

in its defence. They showed their fidelity to their native land under cir-

cumstances that would have been an excuse, if not a reason, for their

revolt against the authorities of the realm, and a plea for the formation

of a combination with a foreign power that promised relief from their

religious and political disabilities. They were residents of England, hut

they could scarcely he called citizens. They could not hold office"nTYhe

United Kingdom
;
they were denied the rights of freemen

;
they were

branded as traitors if they practiced their religion
;
their priests could

t not perform the rites of their church under penalty of fine and imprison-

ment
;
the Catholic could not propagate the sentiments of his faith; he

dared not recognize either the temporal or spiritual power of, to him, the

Holy Father and Head of the Christian Church on earth—the very Vicar
of Christ. Moreover, against his opinion and his religion, under penalty

and surety, he must attend the worship set up by the governmental powers

against the right and authority (I.), as he believed, of his infallible

church
;
he could not maintain a school for the education of his children

in the precepts of his belief, nor send them abroad to be instructed in the

articles of his faith
;
he dared not conform to the ceremonials of his church

;

he was required, by act of Parliament, to take the Holy Sacrament in

two forms against both the rules of his church and the dictates of his

conscience. The Roman Catholic at that period was an outlaw in his

own land for being a Catholic
;
a traitor by virtue of legislative enact-

ment
;
he was a fugitive, by law, in conscience, with hue and cry raised

against him
;
his religious ordinances were denied him

;
his property was

in the uncertain balances of criminal proceedings for being a Catholic.

He was without citizenship in his own land. Yet, in the face of the foe

of his country, the English Catholic was a patriot before he was a church-

man.
~ ~ '——

-
—

'"'Tn saving England to Englishmen the English Roman Catholic had

saved America to Americans.

(I.) Elizabeth 23, c-h. I.



34

CHAPTER FIVE.

English Catholics Aided in Preserving English Rights That

Have Inured to the Imperishable Benefit of Americans,

and an English Catholic Layman Brought the

Tree of Liberty to America.

Section I.—THE RIGHTS OF ENGLISHMEN TO JULY 4, 1776,
EQUALLY THE LIBERTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF BRITISH-AMER-

ICANS. Whatever history England had made to July 4, 1776, when our

American forefathers issued their declaration of political independence

;

whatever of honor and renown her people had attained
;
whatever of

rights and privileges the English people enjoyed; whatever of racial, re-

ligious and national blessings they possessed to this crucial date in our

and their annals belong equally to the American colonist as they do in

its most comprehensive sense to the most favored citizen of the British

Kingdom. Therefore, whatever benedictions were inherited and obtained

through the aid of their Catholic ancestors make Americans, logically,

the debtors to these members of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as they

do the people of England today themselves. The sum of these inalien-

able privileges that Roman Catholics assisted their Protestant brethren

in England to obtain, and which were handed down to Americans as their

indefeasible rights, are cogently set forth in the charter granted to Mary-

land, a compendium of what all other American colonists were entitled

to. This charter granted, to the Maryland settlers gave them

—

“All privileges, franchises and liberties of this, our Kingdom of Eng-

land, freely, quietly and peaceably to have and possess, and the same

may use and enjoy in the same manner as our liege-men, or to be born

within our said Kingdom of England, without impediment, molestation,

vexation, impeachment or grievance of us, or any of our heirs or succes-

sors
;
any statute, act, ordinance, or provisions to the contrary notwith-

standing.” * * * “The children born” to the colonists and of others

of their descendants were entitled to, and wrere granted, these same

rights and privileges.

So the chain of rights continued from British freemen to American

freemen and colonists, and their children, forever. We have traced

these rights, in a partial survey of the stream of history that brought the

tide of liberty to American shores, and we shall now proceed to discuss

the full current of events that make the American Protestant a debtor



35

to his Roman Catholic brother for his share in securing and preserving

to him the ark and covenant of his freedom.

Section 2.—THE UNITED STATES WAS SETTLED BY PEOPLE

WHO EMIGRATED FROM A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY AND BROUGHT
CHRISTIANITY WITH THEM. This religion, too, the Christian relig-

ion, which the people who settled the American colonies brought with

them, came, with one exception, from England. The single plantation

colonized from any other source was the province of New York. Yet

this colony, as well as the other twelve, bore to this new land the prin-

ciples of a Christian faith that had been nurtured and saved in its criti-

cal state by the Roman Church, and this religion today is the very corner-

stone of all American social and civil systems; it is the basis of Ameri-

can jurisprudence; the bond of society; the essential elements of its pub-

lic and private life; the ethics of its law; the standard of individual and

general morality
;
the vital link of Federal unity

;
the source of freedom

;

the foundation of every American institution
;
the cement of its order and

ordinances
;
the creator of its civilization

;
the support of its authority

;

the genious and strength of its government; and the hope and surety of

its future. Whatever force or power contributed to the saving of a princi-

ple so fundamental and instrumental in giving and preserving to the Amer-

ican Republic so many private and national advantages, has placed Amer-

icans under a national debt of obligation of vast and incalculable magni-

tude. It will be seen, as the currents of history are traced, that this

salvation was accomplished by the Roman Catholic Church.

Section 3. A CATHOLIC LAYMAN WAS THE PIONEER OF A
FREE CHURCH IN A FREE STATE. The struggle with lawless power
and the successful issue of the contest had opened the minds of English-

men to broader conceptions of their rights. The cruelties of fanaticism,

lodged with no special denomination, had shocked freemen into a defense

of their privileges. The translation of the Bible into the native tongue

;

the open book in the nave of the churches
;
the reading of the Sacred

Scripture around the family altar
;
the work of the printing press in send-

ing the Word of God into every Christian home, had enlightened the dor-

mant thought of the populace, and laymen and leaders realized that true

religion before God and the Father lay not in pomp and ceremonials, but

that it lived in the heart of individual, and as each honest man realized

these facts and saw by the rising beams of conscience and his own intel-

ligence that he was personally responsible to the Almighty for his own in-

dividual acts, he longed to be able, without fear of molestation, to wor-

ship God according to the dictates of his own sense of right and duty.

Then brave spirits began to speak what they hoped for and believed.

Robert Brown, in Elizabeth’s time, leader of the Brownists, as his fol-

lowers were designated, opposed the very idea of a national church, and

“asserted the right of each congregation to perfect independence of faith

and worship.” The philosopher Locke advocated freedom in matters of



36

religion, and longed for a commonwealth where there would be no religious

tests nor molestation of private belief. It was in the lustrous and excep-

tional end the privilege of George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, a

Roman Catholic layman, to originate and to initiate in practice a com-

munity in which all men might have the right to worship the God of their

fathers without let or hindrance according to the dictates of their own

consciences, none daring to molest nor make them afraid, so long as they

did not, under pretense of religion, violate the law of the land. It was

his noble aim to establish a realm where, while Christianity was the basis

of its laws and customs, its freedom and civilization, yet it would be one

where no force was to be used, by statute or custom, to make men sup-

port, or take part, against their will, any forms of religious worship.

To this end he sought a charter for the palatinate of Maryland from

Charles the First of England. A new era had dawned in the world. The

beacon of civil and religious liberty, uplifted by the hand of a Roman

Catholic layman, was raised to shed its benign light upon its own and

unborn generations.

Section 4. ROMAN CATHOLICS SETTLE MARYLAND AND
RAISE THE BANNER OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE
NEW WORLD. Maryland was thus settled under the auspices of a char-
ter granted by Charles the First, of England, to Cecilius Calvert, the

second Baron of Baltimore, on the 20th of June, 1632. A charter had been

written for George Calvert, the father of Cecilius, the first Lord Balti-

more
;
but, before it had been signed and had passed into the hands of

the grantee, he died. The province was named in compliment to Queen

Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles the First. A new experiment was to be

tried in this colony. The grant was one of royal powers, and Lord Bal-

timore was to hold forever of the King and his heirs and successors,

Kings of England, “as of our Castle of Windsor, in our County of Berks,

in free and common Soccage (1), by Fealty only for all Services, and not

in Capitee, nor by Knights Service, Yielding therefore unto us. our Heirs

and Successors, two Indian Arrows of those Parts to be delivered at the

said Castle of Windsor, every year, on Tuesday in Easter Week
;
and also

the fifth part of all Gold and Silver Ore, which shall happen from Time

to Time, to be found in the aforesaid limits” that had been granted. The

Ark and the Dove were the appropriate and significant names of the two

ships on which the colonists set sail from England on the 22nd day of

November for their new home in Maryland.

Cecilius Calvert appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, governor of

the new colony, an office which he filled to his death with honor and with

equity, and selected Jeremy Hawley and Thomas Cornwallis as his coun-

sellors in the government of the province. The number of emigrants was

about two hundred. Some of these were men of fortune, and most of

them were Roman Catholics. Amongst the colonists were mechanics,

artisans and laborers, who were chiefly Protestants. Two Catholic



37

priests—Fathers White and Altham—accompanied the settlers. On the
25th of March, 1634, the colonists landed on the Island of St. Clements,

in the Potomac River. Their first public act was a religious rite—con-
ducted under the auspices of Roman Catholic priests and laymen. Here

the holy fathers who had accompanied the expedition, celebrated mass,

and after they had observed this ceremony, they took upon their shoul-

ders a huge cross, which they had hewn out of a tree, and, advancing in

order to the appointed place, with the assistance of the Governor and his

associates and other Catholics, they erected this emblem of Christianity,

humbly reciting, on bended knees, the Litanies of the Sacred Cross, with

great emotion. Thus was dedicated to Christian truth “The Land of the

Sanctuary,” then the only place in the wide, wide world where men of

every creed might find shelter for themselves and protection in the exer-

cise of their religion.

How beautiful was their piety manifested by the treatment that these

settlers accorded the untutored savages of the land.. When Governor

Calvert learned that many princes w^ere subject to the Emperor of Pisca-

taway, he paid him a visit. The Governor found the young King’s uncle

and guardian, Archibu, who willingly listened to Father Altham, who

had accompanied the Governor. The Father explained, through an inter-

preter, Captain Henry Fleet,
t

the errors of the heathen, and informed the
1

chief that the settlers had come thither, not to make war, but out of good

will towards them, in order to impart civilized instruction to his ignorant

race, and to show the way to heaven. The chief said he was pleased at

their coming, and, when Father Altham promised to come again, the chief

replied : “That is just what I wish
;
we will eat at the same table

;
my

followers, too, shall go to hunt for you, and we wfill have all things in

common.”

Purchasing the land from the Indians in the section where they had

settled—a transaction hastened and assisted by the fact that the natives
were preparing to leave their present homes for others on the east side

of the Chesapeake Bay to escape the incursions of their enemies, the war-

like and formidable Susquehannocks, the peaceful and pious settlers of

Maryland began and cemented an amity that was never broken by a war

with the aborigines of the soil.

The' high moEIves of Lord Baltimore in settling Maryland are found

recorded in a letter of instructions which he gave to his representatives.

In this letter he told them that when they had made choice of the place

wh^re they intended to settle, the Governor or one of the Commissioners

should “make some short declaration to the people of his Lordship’s in-

tentions which he means to pursue in this, his intended plantation, which

are first the honor of God, by the endeavoring the conversion of the sav-

ages to Christianity; second, the augmentation of his Majesty’s Empire

*

(1.) A settled rent, and not an arbitrary demand of service of any kind.



38

and Dominions in those parts of the world by reducing them under the

subjection of his Crown
;
and, thirdly, by the good of such of his Country-

men as are willing to adventure their fortunes and themselves in it, by

endeavoring all he can to assist them, that they may reap the fruits of

their charges and labors according to the hopefulness of the thing, with

as much freedom, comfort and encouragement as they can desire.’*

Blessed land
!

_happy Maryland ! fortunate the people ! and thrice blessed

the man who, in tbis~cTark age, conceived so noble an idea of national

freedom and Christian brotherhood, and who made the ideal of his mind

and heart the realization of his adventurers to this new and unique com-

monwealth.

In the carefully written instructions which Lord Baltimore had given

his Governor and the two Commissioners to advise him, the nobility of

mind and the broad principles that governed the Lord Proprietary of

Maryland are exemplified. The first paragraph is the keynote. His initial

order was : “His Lordship requires his Governor and Commissioners

that, in their voyage to Mary Land, they be very careful to preserve unity

and peace amongst all the passengers on Shippboard, and that they suffer

no scandall nor offence to be given to any of the Protestants, whereby

any just complaint may heereafter be made by them, in Virginia or in

England, and for that end they Cause all Acts of the Romane Catholique

Religion to be done as privately as may be, and that they instruct all the

Romane Catholicques to be silent upon all occasions of discourse concern-

ing matters of Religion
;
and that the said Governor and Commissioners

treate the Protestants with as much mildness and favor as Justice will

permitt. And this to be observed at Land as well as at Sea.” In the last

paragraph of his instructions Lord Baltimore commanded his Governor

and his Counsellors, “In fine, they bee very careful to do justice to every

man without partiality.” This was the American beacon of liberty

raised in the new world by a Roman Catholic layman—a prototype of the
Union of States that now compose the mighty Republic of the United

States of America. It was his free choice. It was his ideal of freedom.

Section 5.—RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WAS THE COMMON LAW
OF MARYLAND UNDER HER ROMAN CATHOLIC PROPRIETARY.
It has often been stated that religious freedom was first introduced in

Maryland when the Protestant Puritans, in 1649, driven out of Virginia by

Protestant churchmen, was received in Maryland and given home, land

and liberty by her Catholic Proprietary, made the beginning of unrestricted

religious rights in this illustrious commonwealth. Not so. Religious lib-

erty was coeval with the settlement of the colony.^It was a fundamental

principle of government from its commencement. For fifteen years prior

to the Act of 1649, which guaranteed to these fuitive Puritans by statute

of the General Assembly their religious privileges, an Act commonly

known as the “Religious Toleration Act,” th£ people of Maryland, enioved.

absolute religious freedom. It was the law of the land—the common law,



39

supplemented by act and deed, word and practice. During the seventy

years that Lord Baltimore was the Proprietary of Maryland, before the

overthrow of his authority and the establishment of the Protestant re-

ligion by Act of Assembly, not one case of religious persecution of 'any

kind is recorded against his administration. It was true when, from

1655-6 to 1662, the Puritans held the government against him, that they did

persecute Catholics and Quakers, but it was the work of men who held

illegal authority, and who were themselves Protestants. The government

of Lord Baltimore stands without a stain against its virgin escutcheon of

religious liberty.

Section 6.—RELIGIOUS PROTECTION WAS NOT A FICTION,
BUT A REALITY IN MARYLAND. Not only were men allowed freedom

of worship in Maryland, but their religion was protected from insult in

their presence by the statute of the state. The justice and equity with

which the government of Lord Baltimore was administered, and its strict

care to prevent religious dissensions is shown in an incident that occurred

in 1638—four years after the settlement of the colony. A proclamation
had been issued, prohibiting “all unseasonable disputations in point of

religion, tending to the disturbance of the public peace and quiet of the

colony, and to the opening of faction in religion.” Captain Cornwalleys

had some servants who were Protestants. They lived in the house with

William Lewis, a zealous Catholic, under whose charge they were. It

happened, not improbably with an obvious intention that Lewis should

have the benefit of it, that Francis Gray and Robert Sedgraven, two of

these Protestant servants of Captain Cornwalleys, were reading aloud Mr.

Smith’s Sermons, a Protestant work. William Lewis came through the

room.* Supposing they were reading the book for him to hear, particu-

larly some offensive passages in it
—

“that Pope was^ anti-Christ, and the

Jesuits anti-Christian ministers”—Lewis retorted “that it was a falsehood,
and came from the devil, as all lies did, and he would prove it

;
and that

all Protestant ministers were ministers of the devil,” and Lewis there-

upon forbade the two from reading that book any more. The servants

prepared a petition that Lewis alleged they had intended to be presented

by them to Sir William Harvey, the Governor of Virginia, Governor Har-

vey being a Protestant, as soon as they had procured the signatures of all

the Protestants in Maryland. The gist of the petition was a complaint

against Lewis for his abuse of the Protestant ministers, and his refusal

to permit them either to keep or read, in any house, any book that apper-

tained to their religion. Before the memorialists had opportunity to present

their memorial for redress Lewis gave information of the existence of the

document to Captain Cornwalleys, one of the Governor’s Councillors, who

presented the matter to Secretary of State John Lewger, who ordered the

parties, with their witnesses, to be brought before him and Captain Corn-

walleys. The petition was delivered to Captain Cornwalleys, and the

parties were bound over with two sureties to answer at the next court.



40

In the absence of a witness the servants’ cases were deferred; but the

Secretary gave his opinion that Lewis, for his “offensive speeches and

unreasonable disputations in point of religion, contrary to public procla-

mation to prohibit such disputes,” should be fined 500 pounds of tobacco,

and to remain in the sheriff’s custody until he found sufficient securities

for his good behaviour in time to come.

Section 7.—CATHOLIC MARYLAND THE LAND OF PEACE,
LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS. Maryland and its happy life was the con-
ception and creation of Lord Baltimore—a Catholic layman. In looking
backward through the avenues of time and the annals of history, let

Americans remember that this famous commonwealth was the project

and realism of a Catholic citizen. “By your fruits ye shall know them.”

The orderly, busy, worthy life of the Maryland settlers, as seen through

the telescope of its judicial records and the pages of its recorded chroni-

cles, presents the colony as the bustling young prototype of the mother

country from which it sprang—living under its native tree of liberty
with the new branch

—

of religious freedom grafted into its stalwart trunk.

Here was the Court Pepowftry of the great cities ' of London and Liver-

pool
;
here the courts leet and baron that reflected the picturesque tri-

bunals of the lordly barons of England; here was the county court mirror-

ing the great courts nisi of York and Devonshire
;
the Provincial Court

—

the representative of the high Court of Chancery of Great Britain; and

then the appeal to the Legislature as the last legal resort as the English

suitor came to the House of Lords. Here was my lord, “Sir Thomas

Gerrard,” “my lady of the manor,” the steward of the manor
;
the seizin

by rod
;
the stock for the guilty

;
the ducking stool for the common scold

;

the whipping-post for the criminal
;
here the Governor of the Province as

the high chancellor of State
;
the soverign lord proprietary

;
“his highness

the lord protector of England,” and our sovereign lord the king—when

the king was on his throne; the trial by jury; the writs of right and ar-

rest
;
the Bible of the Englishman—found in almost every inventory in

court ; the right to have and possess arms ; the elective franchise ; the vote

and voice of the free man in Assembly
;
the Englishman’s inalienable priv-

ilege to levy his own taxes and make his own laws
;
his recognized duty to

quiet his estate before he died
;
his jealousy of his reputation ; his fearless-

ness in battle
;
his superiority over trials and environments

;
his ability

to adapt himself to every condition
;
his respect for woman

;
his love of

the chase
;
his desire to acquire property

;
his worship of God

;
his venera-

tion for law and love of order
;
his penchant for trade and adventure

;

his merry-makings
; Ifij

s love of strong drink and hatred of drunkenness

;

the shadow of a hereditary aristocracy in his Lords” of Manors
;
the mili-

tary spirit of the freemen
;

their oaths, pardons, acts of oblivion
;
the

names of towns, rivers, cities, counties and province evincing their love of

the land from whence they came and their faith in God
;
while their free,

church and unfettered priesthood lit up the vision of hope with a fresh



41

beam from the fanes of liberty whose beneficent rays spread throughout

the American colonies, and from whose shores its scintillations are now

lighting the horizon of every struggling nation in the entire world. This

was the commonwealth a Roman Catholic established—the type of our
favored American Union today. He founded it in 1634—in an age of
strife, bitterness and uncompromising prejudices. It remained a free and

tolerant commonwealth when yet Rhode Island, settled in 1632, denied

Catholics the right to worship according to the behests of their
-

con-

science^TT when Connecticut prohibited- the^BooR of Comm^~Prayer from

entering its province ; when New York was imprisoning Quakers, and

the siiadow
r
of Ihe slaughter of witches was havering "over tiie Bayof Mas-

sachusetts. —
Section 8.—THE LOYALTY OF CATHOLICS TESTED AND

PROVED IN THE COLONIES. The bloodless revolution in Maryland,

in 1689, deprived Lord Baltimore of his province and patrimony. In 1692

the free and untrammelled church of Maryland was legislated out of ex-

istence, and the Established ^urch^pt-J^ngland made by law the form of
__

worship in the colony. Hence and hereafter the Roman Catholic could
have no church in Maryland—the land of his founding and fathers. He
could hide it from public view in his own private chapel on his own prem-

ises, and have his priest minister there
;
but he could erect no public edi-

fice. His religion was a State criminal. More, lie was deprived of his
electoral rights . A Catholic could not vote in Maryland. So he continued

for three-quarters of a century . He was allowed’Tx^practice law, cultivate £
tlie 'soih engage in business, and, sometimes, to hold office. In this condi-

tion, in 1754, the French and Indian War arose. The French were Cath- fr

olics. It became a question as to what would be the action of the Mary-

land Catholics. Would they join with the French Catholic and merciless

savage, and assassinate their Protestant fellow-citizens? This was the

burning issue of the day. Rumors followed reports, and reports hastened

on the heel of rumors, of plots and dangers from the disaffection of the

Catholic, until the whole province was stirred to such an extent that it

was proposed in the General Assembly to put the Catholics of Maryland

under the ban of suspicion and dishonor by taking from them all of their

arms. This resolution only failed of passage in the House by the negative

vote of the. illustrious Daniel Dulany, of Dan., a vote that cost him his

seat in the Legislature, for Annapolis, which he represented, was intensely

Protestant. Long and bitter was the contention between the Governor

and the Lower House. His Excellency was conservative—the House of
Delegates radical. In the course of his communications to the House

Governor Sharpe, in an address to the Assembly in 1756, bore this testi-

mony to the loyalty of the Roman Catholics of Maryland : “It will, on

inquiry, be found that, whether the Administration of Public Affairs was

in the Hands of Protestants of Papists, or both indifferently, when their

Country teas in Danger from an Invasion, Europeans or Savages, they



42

exerted themselves unanimously in opposition to the common enemy, and,

as none thought himself, in those infant Days of the Colony, more remote

than another from Danger, they generally hastened to each other’s As-

sistance, and they, who did not expose their persons, never scrupled to

make such Satisfaction and Allowance to those who did, and who, in

Obedience to the Laws and their Superior Officers’ Commands, were

obliged to do so.” As to the conduct of the Catholics during the present

crisis, the Governor told the House of Delegates “That, after a Careful

Enquiry and Scrutiny into the Conduct of the People of the Roman Faith,

who reside among us, they (the magistrates of Maryland) have not found

any of them have misbehaved themselves, or given just cause of Offence.”

Thus Roman Catholics in Maryland, during the French and Indian War,

acted the part their fellow-churchmen in every land and under every vary-

ing circumstance have taken in standing by and defending their country

in its hours of peril and danger against every foe, whether he was foreign,

domestic or ecclesiastic. History affirms that the Roman Catholic is in-



43

CHAPTER SIX.

The Services of Roman Catholics and Roman Catholic

Countries in the Cause of the American Revolution

Gave the Colonies Their Freedom.

Section 1.—THE WORK OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE
CAUSE OF AMERICAN FREEDOM. It was .a providential dispensation

that to no particular branch or denomination o^Christianity belongs the

settlement of the American colonies, the development of its freedom, and

the enlargement of its civilization. The Churchman, the Puritan, the

Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian, the Dutch Reformer, the Baptist and

the Friend alike aided in the founding of these plantations, and yet other

religious bodies assisted in the evolution of American liberty, and in the

expansion of that civilization which has made our country the freest in

the world. We have seen that no church did a greater work in the labors
and hardships of colonization and in the planting of the vital elements of

American freedom, and in the creation of our American civilization than

that accomplished by th’e members of the Roman Catholic Church. To

George Calvert, then the first Lord Baltimore, belongs the sublime idea of

*
- the creation of a commonwealth where^all of its citizens should enjoy the

rights of conscience and religion without fear of molestation. When his

son, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, another Catholic, made

a realty of what had been the hope of his illustrious father, Maryland’s

religious freedom became the keynote of the grand song of American lib-

erty that echoes over the entire Union of the States of the American Re-

public, and the genius of that province rose on the horizon of history as

the Day-Star of American institutions. This right, initiated by the Cath-

olics of Maryland, has been the benediction that has made the United

States of America worthy of the name of the land of the free. It has

been charged that Lord Baltimore had mercenary motives in attracting

settlers by his toleration to Maryland in the maintenance of this right of

conscience, and, more, that, being under a Protestant King, he could not

act otherwise than in the manner in which he conducted his government.

The best interpretation of an act is the act itself. George Calvert per-

formed a great service for his generation, and all that followed it, in set-

ting an example and being a leader in a movement to free men from the

vicious and galling yoke of bitter enmities on account of religious differ-

ences. He need not have been a leader and pioneer in tins happy art of

righteous citizenship. Yet he was. Until his motives can be successfully

assailed by substantial proof to the contrary, the aims and act of Lord



44

Baltimore must be acknowledged and adjudged to have been from the

loftiest motives and the noblest nationality. A Protestant’s king grant

and approval do not minify his work.

This right of religion, inaugurated in its broadest sense, first by Lord

Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, was, we have said, the benediction that has

made America worthy of the name of the free. This is not all that Cath-

olics have done for the cause of American rights and freedom. When the

arbitrament of arms had been invoked to maintain American liberties,

Charles Carroll, of Carrollton , a Roman Catholic, and the richest man in

all America, learned and distinguished, espoused with ardor his country’s

cause, encouraged his fellow-churchmen to assist the revolted colonies,

became their counsellor, ^v^s a signer of their declaration of independence,

and was, with his brother. Archbishop John Carroll, another Roman Cath-
olic, the first diplomats of the thirteen States accredited to foreign coun-

tries—both being sent to the Catholics of Canada to secure their aid and

sympathies. This assistance was largely denied because Samuel Adams,

of Massachusetts, not a Catholic, had, in a public paper, denounced King

George for protecting Catholics. Naturally, as New England was one of

the chief leaders in the revolt, the Catholics of Canada generally preferred

to live under a government friendly to them, than to seek shelter in a land

where their own sovereign was denounced for protecting them. Yet the

spirit of the Carrolls was undaunted by this failure, nor did they heed the

isolated words of Adams, for, like his firother.- Archhishon Carroll was,

without abatement, the able and eloquent defender of the cause of Ameri-

can Revolution, and hundreds of Canada Catholics entered tfre Army of

the Continentals. '</

The Marquis de Lafayette, a Catholic, at the age of eighteen caWe to'
**

the defence of the revolted colonies with his purse, and gave his services

in the field to the struggling patriots. France, a Catholic country, was the

first of the nations to recognize the beligerant rights of the infant Repub-

lic, and gave her means to arm and equip its forces and carry on its cam-

paigns. She, the “Fourteenth State,” sent her Army and Navy to aid our

forefathers in this battle against almost overwhelming odds, and without

her powerful assistance, the revolt would have ended in disastrous failure.

One-half of the American Army, so declared by a citizen of Pennsylvania

to a committee of the House of Parliament during the progress of the Rev-

olution, was composed of Irishmen, and it may well be concluded by all

of its historic environments that this fact included the other fact that *

almost all, if not every one, was a Catholic. ^Indeed, sq numerous were ,
the Catholics in the Army around Boston when, after an annual custom,

the soldiers were about to burn the Pope in effigy, General Washington

issued a proclamation to those contemplating observing this usage, pre-

venting them fi-om executing the offensive farce, on the ground

many of their Catholic fellow-citizens were in the Army aiding them that
it ougnt to occiir to the projectors of the habit not to insult these Cath-

olics and their religion in this formal manner.



45

Among the many Irishmen who had commands in the Army and Navy

of the American Revolutionists were Gen. John Stark^ the hero of Ben-

nington
;
Gen. Anthony Wayne, “Mad Anthony,” as he was lovingly called;

Gen. John Sullivan , GenT^ichard Montgomery. and General Moylan, with

Commander John Barry, on the high seas, “the father of the American

Navy,” and captain of the first ship to hoist the Stars and Stripes, ai d

Jere O’Brien, who, in Machias Bay, fought thg first naval fight of the

Revolution.

These were all Irishmen, or file sons of Irish parents, and, rationally,

it may be concluded they were all of Catholic belief. ^Knox’s artillerymen

and Morgan’s riflemen wei*e“all Irishmen. ~Xt the battles of Bennington,

Stoney Point, Cowpens and King’s Mountain, Irishmen commanded the

American Armies in person. The victory at Cowpens, where John Morgan

commanded, Bancroft says marked the most important battle of the Revolu-

tion. The Catholics of Canada raised, armed and equipped two full regi-

ments for the American cause, which rendered invaluable aid and per-

formed heroic services
;
while Catholic Spain threw open her home ports

and the port of Havana to the American marines, contributed three thou-

sand barrels of powder, blankets for ten regiments, and one million francs

to the young and struggling Republic. From Catholic Poland came Pulaski

and Kosciusko—immortal names in American history and gratitudef All

the foreign aid that came to our battling forefathers came from Catholics

and Catholic countries, while at home there was not a single Catholic tory,

nor one Catholic who faltered in his allegiance to the fight for American

Independence. Even among the native Indian tribes there were found

Catholics to assist in the work of achieving American liberty. Orono, the

Catholic chief of the Penobscots, was commissioned an officer by the Conti-

nental Congress, and with his tribe rendered splendid services along the

Canadian frontier. (1.).

Section 2.—A THESAURUS OF BENEFITS THAT ROMAN CATHO-
LICS HAVE CONFERRED UPON AMERICAN CITIZENS THAT HAVE
NOT BEEN RECOUNTED. There has been recounted in this recapitula-
tion of benefits that Roman Catholics have conferred upon the citizenship

of Americans from their declaration of Christianity to their ancestors in

England
;
their defence of English rights in the contest with King John

at Runnymede
;
their support of the civil privileges of the Church in Eng-

land at the period of its separation from the Latin Church
;
their preserva-

tion the England from Spanish domination
;
their example in Maryland of

religious toleration
;
their support of the colonies in the French and Indian

War
;
their rescue of the independence of the American colonies in their

war with Great Britain in the Revolution
;
but this historic array does not

record those other advantages that the Catholic Church has conferred upon

our American citizenship and the civilized nations of the entire world in

(1.) Winston’s American Catholics and the A. P. A., pages 25-26.



46

its treasure-houses of literary lore
;

its repositories of art
;

its noble ex-

amples of individual piety; its encouragement of architecture; its broad-

handed charities
;

its schools of learning
;

its magnificent libraries
;

its

myriads of martyrs for Christian truth
;
its inculcation of moral precepts

;

its support of civil authority
;
its amelioration of the horrors of war

;
its

steadfast opposition to human slavery; its magnificent repertoire of origi-

nal hymnology
;
its garners of splendid music

;
its development of the re-

ligious drama
;
its^long list of authentic authors; its voluminous contribu-

tions to religious literature
;
its magnificent files of bibliography

;
its pre-

cious rolls of sacred, manuscripts
;
its hospitals for the afflicted

;
its hos-

pices for the weary and distressed; its refuges and shelters for the sick of

heart and mind
;

its innumerable missions to heathendom
;

its conserva-

tion of “the form of the sound words” of the faith
;
the uplift of the

standard of the cross in every hour of trial, and the uncompromising

advocacy of Christianity by the membership of that church at every and

any cost—even life itself.
Section 3.—THE FACTORS IN THE NATIONAL DEBT THAT

AMERICAN PROTESTANTS OWE TO THEIR ROMAN CATHOLIC
BRETHREN. It is a* historical and not a theological investigation that

we have been making. No rancor of partizanship, no heat of denomi-

national debate, no animosity of religious differences, no fire of national

issues have entered, or can enter, into this inquiry. It has been accom-

plished in the calm atmosphere of a chronological and analytical exami-

nation of facts of accredited and incontrovertible certainty. It has been

proved beyond controversy that

:

First—Catholic missionaries, sent by Gregory the Great—Pope of
Rome, brought Christianity and civilization a cult and a religion Catholics

had saved from destruction by barbarism to our English ancestors, which

we, as British-Americans, inherited from them.

Second—That this debt of gratitude and of benefits conferred was
increased when Catholics aided in the uprising against King John that

made him sign the Magna Charta of English rights.

Third—That the obligation was augmented when English Catholics
defended their country’s prerogatives when Clement and Henry the Eighth

contended for power in England, and that their action turned the tide in

England’s favor and enabled her to maintain her civil supremacy.

Fourth—That joined to this liability which Americans owe to their
Catholic ancestors is the far-reaching debit of advantages which inured

to us when the loyalty of the English Catholics saved England from the

power and conquest of Philip of Spain.

Fifth—That the English Catholics who settled in Maryland, struck
the very keynote of American liberty for the first time in our history, and

gave the country the example of that Christian charity in our denomi-

national differences which has been the very cornerstone itself of our

freedom.

Sixth—That Catholic Canada sent two regiments to assist our



47

Revolutionary forces
;
that Irish Catholics filled half of our Revolutionary

Army; that Catholic Spain gave our Revolutionary forefathers blankets,

powder and money; that Catholic France furnished us in our Revolution

men, means and officers, and awarded us the first recognition as a nation;

and that the only countries that aided us in the struggles against Great

Britain for American liberty were Catholic peoples, and that, without their

succor and support, the American colonies never would have achieved their

independence.

This then is the sum of the national debt that American Protestants

owe to their brethren of the Roman Catholic Church.

May it not then well be asked : “Can this obligation ever be liqui-

dated?”





49

THE LIST OF PATRONS OF '‘THE NATIONAL DEBT

THAT AMERICAN PROTESTANTS OWE TO THEIR
BRETHREN OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.”

The generous response to the author’s request for a hundred patrons

to secure the issue of this work, and the gratifying accompaniment of

many earnest words of approval of the subject treated in the volume

—

are cheering promises that the hope of the writer that this effort may
strengthen the ties of Christian fellowship and national brotherhood in

the great American Republic, may be realized. To these friends and

supporters the author returns his grateful thanks. These are the patrons

of this publication :

KEY. JOSEPH P. McCOMAS, rector of St. Anne’s Protestant Episcopal Church,
Annapolis, Md.

CHAPLAIN WILLIAM G. CASSARD, U. S. N.
HON. GEORGE L. WELLINGTON, ex- Senator of the United States.
JUDGE CHARLES N. BURKE, of the Court of Appeals of Maryland.
JUDGE ALBERT CONSTABLE, of the Court of Appeals of Maryland.
JAMES M. MUNROE, LL. B., Counsellor-at-Law, Annapolis, Md.
ROBERT MOSS, Esq., President of the Board of Visitors and Governors of St.

John's College, Annapolis, Md., and Counsellor-at-Law.

R. H. BONILLA, Instructor at the U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.

WILLIAM J. KING, Instructor at the U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
M. M. BRADY.

J. ROLAND BRADY.
RASMUS CLAWSON.
FRANCIS J. QUINN.

LAWRENCE WALTON.
A. T. BRADY, Counsellor-at-Law, Annapolis, Md.
GEORGE J. DAVIS, Merchant.
GRAFTON D. RIDOUT, Merchant.
ANTHONY DAVIS, Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
HARRY’ F. STURDY, Professor at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Md.
A. B. BRADY.

JOHN J. McCOSKER.
JAMES J. CUSACKS, Judge of the Orphans’ Court, Anne Arundel Co., Maryland.
JAMES C. BANNON.
WM. N. WOODWARD, Chief Clerk in the Office of the Clerk of the Circuit

Court of Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

M. SHANNON.
W. J. SEELEY.

FRANK A. MUNROE, Judge of the Orphans’ Court of Anne Arundel Co., Md.
MARTIN JACKSON.
THOMAS J. LINTHICUM, Postmaster of Annapolis, Md.
MRS. EMMA ABBOTT GAGE, Editor of The Evening Capital, Annapolis, Md.
CLARENCE M. WHITE, Merchant.
THE DAILY RECORD, Baltimore, Md.
LOUIS KNACKSTEAD, Jeweler.
J. H. ZELLER, Collector of Annapolis Water Company.
CHARLES F. LEE, Real Estate Dealer.
JOHN H. WHEELER, Oil Merchant.
ELMER E. PARKINSON, Builder and Contractor.



50

W. E. LOWES, General Advertising Agent of the B. & O. Railroad Co.

J. J. GALLAGHER, Attorney-at-Law.
WILLIAM H. RULLMAN, Druggist.
BENESCH’S HOUSEHOLD FURNISHING ESTABLISHMENT, Annapolis, Md.
DR. GEORGE WELLS, Clerk of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel Co., Maryland.
T. KENT GREEN, Druggist.
MRS. GEORGE W. HODGES, Historian of the Society of the Ark and the Dove.
RICHARD SMALLWOOD.
WINSON G. GOTT, Counsellor-at-Law.
ANTOINE STEINER.
HON. JAMES F. STRANGE, Mayor of Annapolis, Md.

BROWN BROS., Crab Dealers.
GUS CARDES, Confectioner.

HARRY J. HOPKINS, Esq., President of the Farmers Bank of Annapolis, Md.
C. C. MAGRUDER, Clerk of the Court of Appeals of Maryland.
WILLIAM N. BERKELEY, Ph.D., Chemist at the U. S. Naval Experiment Sta-

tion, Annapolis, Md.

GEORGE T. MELVIN, President of the Annapolis Banking and Trust Company.
J. J. DOYLE, General Manager of the W., B. & A. Railway Company.

R. E. ALDRIDGE, President of the Annapolis Chamber of Commerce.

WM. M. HOLLADAY, Proprietor of The Advertiser- Republican, Annapolis, Md.

J. CLAYTON BREWER, Insurance and Real Estate Agent.
R. G. ELLIOTT, Real Estate and Insurance Agent.

MISS JOSEPHINE MILDRED REVELL BRADY.
JOHN LEVY, Merchant.
C. W. GOULD, Real Estate Agent.

DENVER KRAMER.
WILLIAM H. SANDERS.
W. J. K. LEE.

J. LAWRENCE BALLIERS.
C. NELSON DUGAN, Merchant.
JAMES W. CONROY, Clerk in U. S. Naval Academy.
ANDREW A. KRAMER.
FRANK A. WIEGARD.
JOSE CAMINERO.

GEORGE HAHN.
JOSEPH G. BANNON.
DR. CHARLES E. MULLAN, Dental Surgeon.
MICHAEL ^'.WELLER. -
MISS KATE DEMPSEY.
COMMANDER D. W. MULLAN, U. S. Navy.
MRS. GEORGE W. MOSS.
MRS. ANTOINE STEINER.
MISS LOTTIE STEINER.

JOHN GUNNING.
WESLEY CARTER.
WILLIAM HAMBRUCK.
JOSEPH HY. WAYSON.
J. FRANK JACOBI, Foreman U. S. Naval Academy Power Plant, Naval Academy.
JESSE WILSON, Foreman of the Painting Shop, Naval Academy.

HENRY STOCKBRIDGE, Jr., Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals of
Maryland.

WILLIAM L. MARCY, Secretary of the Maryland State Roads Commission.
CHARLES G. FELDMEYER, Member of the Board of Visitors and Governors

of St. John's College, Annapolis, Md.

FREDERICK JENNINGS.



51

MODERN ANNAPOLIS

Annapolis, Mcl., is a model city.

It has a splendid public school system.

It has a superior plant in its water-works. The water is equal

nearly to distilled water.

St. John’s College, an institution of national reputation, is located

at Annapolis.

The Naval Academy, situated here, affords improvement, recreation

and amusement to the citizens of this highly favored community.

It has rapid and unusual electric railway communication with Balti-

more and Washington. Sixty trains a day leave and come to the city.

It has a steamboat line to Baltimore.

It has motor-boat travel to and from West River.

It has splendidly paved streets, well lighted and clean.

The city government is honestly administered.

The city is admirably located as a residential city.

The town is surrounded by a most generous soil that affords fruits,

berries and vegetables in abundance and in freshness.

The waters about the city—the Chesapeake, the Severn, the Spa and
Dorsey’s Creek—give sport to amateur watermen and fishermen. They
abound in oysters, fish and crabs.

The people of Annapolis are friendly; the society is agreeable; ami

old Maryland manners grace the courtly intercourse of the people with

each other.

Fine stores are located in the city, large lumber-yards, and the skilled

in many crafts live in the town.

Annapolis has two banks, a savings institution, and two building

associations.

It is a city of churches.

It is a commonwealth of unusual industry. It is difficult to find a

white man in the town without some regular employment in which he is

engaged, with all of his might.

Annapolis is a city of beauty, of health, and pleasant associations.

It is the common judgment of strangers who visit the city and of

those who are residents of it, that Annapolis is a fine city to live in.



ANNAPOLIS BUSINESS DIRECTORY

ELMER E. PARKINSON,

Builder and Contractor.

Annapolis, Md.

R. E. ALDRIDGE,

Promoter of Wardour. suburb" of the

Naval Academy. Lots and houses

for sale. Address, Annapolis, Md.

LOUIS H. REHN & CO.,

Dry Goods, Notions and Furnishing

Goods, etc. Agent for Munsing

Underwear for ladies, men and

Children. Cor. Main and Francis

streets, Annapolis. Md.

THE VELVET KIND—PURE ICE
CREAM— (Trade Mark)

Fine Confectionery, Delicious

Soft Drinks.

GARDES,

Annapolis, Md. C. & P. Phone 497-Y.

T. KENT GREEN, PH. G.,

Dealer in

Drugs, Chemicals, Toilet Articles,

Cigars, Cigarettes & Tobacco.

170 Church St.. Annapolis, Md.

R. G. ELLIOTT,

Real Estate and Insurance Agent.

Rents Collected, Loans Negotiated.

Arundel Building, Annapolis, Md.

L. KNACKSTEDT,

Jeweler

Originators of the Navy Button,
Bracelets, Lockets & Eagle Jewelry.

62 Maryland Ave.

For Real Estate or Insurance

Apply to

JULIAN BREWER & SON,

9 School Street.

THE GREAT HOUSE OF ISAAC
BENESCH & SONS

123-125-127 Main Street,

Annapolis, Md.

Furniture, Clothing and Jewelry.

BROWN & BRO.,

Packers of the Celebrated Capitol

Brand of Crab Meat.

Oyster Packers and Fish Dealers.

Compromise St., Annapolis, Md.

RILEY’S HISTORIC MAP OF

ANNAPOLIS

Will locate all the famous places in

Annapolis for you, and will give you

a description of them also. Price,

by mail, 16c. Address Elihu S.

Riley. P. O. Box 34, Annapolis, Md.

ANNAPOLIS BANKING AND
TRUST COMPANY

Annapolis, Md.

Safe Deposit Boxes. Interest on

Deposits. Accommodations to

the Naval Officers and the

General Public.



PLACES OF PUBLIC AND HISTORICAL INTEREST

IN ANNAPOLIS

McCLOUD’S TAVERN.

SITE OF OLD THEATRE.
ST. ANNE’S CHURCH.
ADMIRAL WINFIELD SCOTT
SCHLEY’S HOUSE.

GOVERNOR’S RESIDENCE.
RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM PINK-
NEY.

STATE HOUSE. Here Washington re-
signed his military commission; Con-

gress ratified peace with England,

and the Union of States began.

SITE OF KING WILLIAM’S SCHOOL.
ST. MARY’S SCHOOL.

ST. MARY’S CHURCH.
RIDOUT HOUSE.
COURT OF APPEALS.
BIRTHPLACE OF REVERDY JOHN-
SON.

OGLE MANSION.
BAPTIST CHURCH.
GLEBE HOUSE.
LLOYD DULANY’S HOUSE.
JOHN SHAW’S HOUSE.
HIGH SCHOOL.
GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH.
CARVEL HALL HOTEL.
THOS. JENNINGS’ HOUSE.

MARYLAND AVE. M. E. CHURCH.
NAVAL ACADEMY— “The greatest
Naval School in the world.”—Admiral
Monft, of the Chilian Navy.

ST. ANNE’S CHAPEL.

WADDELL MANSION.
MIDDLETON’S HOTEL.
AUNT LUCY SMITH’S BAKE HOUSE.
ASBURY M. E. CHURCH.
JUDGE NICHOLAS BREWER’S
HOUSE.

SITE OF ANCIENT WINDMILL.
THE McCUBBIN HOUSE.
SITE OF “AN HANDSOME PAIR OF
GATES AT YE COMMING IN OF
THE TOWNE.” 1696.

HUNTER’S TAVERN.
REYNOLDS’ TAVERN.

COURT HOUSE.
ACTON.

POST OFFICE.
HOME AND PRINTING OFFICE OF
JONAS GREENE.

COUNCIL HOUSE.
SITE OF COFFEE HOUSE.
CARVEL HOUSE.
SITE OF THE “OLD BLUE CHURCH
OF METHODISM.”

HOME OF CHARLES CARROLL, OF
CARROLLTON.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
CHASE HOUSE. Residence of Samuel
Chase.

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE.

PEGGY STEWART HOUSE.
MANN’S HOTEL.
MARYLAND HOTEL.
GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
SITE OF FIGHT IN 1765.
BRICE HOUSE.

MAJOR EDWARD DORSEY’S HOUSE.
BALLROOM AND COUNCIL CHAM-
BER.

HARWOOD HOUSE.
SANDS’ HOUSE.

CATON’S BARBER SHOP.
QUARTERS OF THE ACADIANS.
SITE OF DR. CHARLES CARROLL’S
RESIDENCE.

MT. MORIAH AFRICAN M. E.
CHURCH.

SITE OF FIRST GOVERNOR’S MAN-
SION.

SITE OF THE BATTLE OF THE
SEVERN.

SITE OF ANCIENT SHIPYARD—1750.
FORTIFICATIONS DURING THE
CIVIL WAR.

SITE OF OLD SHIP YARD.
HOME OF WILLIAM PACA, SIGNER
OF DECLARATION OF INDE-
PENDENCE.



THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS ABE STILL

IN PRINT

The following publications by Elihu S. Riley, L. H. D., are in print

and may be purchased at the prices named:

HISTORY OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND. Price,

$2. By mail, $2.15.

HISTORY OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MARYLAND. Illustrated.
Price, $1.50. By mail, $1.65.

PICTORIAL ANNAPOLIS AND ILLUSTRATED NAVAL ACADEMY.
Price, 25c. By mail, 30c.

RILEY’S HISTORIC MAP OF ANNAPOLIS. Price, 15c. By mail, 16c.
YORKTOWN. An American Historic Drama. Price, 25c. By mail, 30c.
THE NATIONAL DEBT THAT AMERICAN PROTESTANTS OWE TO

THEIR BRETHREN OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Price, 25c. By mail, 30c. In cloth, 75c.

m

Address RILEY’S HISTORIC REVIEW, P. O. Box, 34, Annapolis, Md.