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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
English Catholicism in the middle decades of the nineteenth century was an extremely complex phenomenon. In the years after 1829 English Catholics were determined to take their rightful place in society. No longer could they be regarded as politically inferior to their Protestant fellow countrymen. Now at last they were in a position to lay to rest the age-old charge that adherence to papism was evidence of disloyalty to the crown. Into this ideal picture of the union between solid English virtues and Roman obedience there intruded two factors designed to precipitate a shattering of the new found confidence of the Catholic aristocracy and middle classes. The converts, by their academic standing, exposed the lack of real educational attainments of the majority of the hereditary Catholics. They were regarded with suspicion by the old Catholics, and seemed to possess a ‘cockiness’ about their Catholicism which was anti-pathetical to the ‘timid retirement of the hereditary Catholics’. Their brand of Catholicism had none of the inhibitions of a bygone age. They were not afraid to make a scene nor to wash their religious laundry in public.
I wish to thank Professor Colin Matthew of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford and Rev. Michael Sharratt of Ushaw College, Durham for helpful comments at an early stage in the preparation of this article.
2 Ward, 2, p. 224. Ward draws attention to an article in The Rambler, November 1848, where ‘the educational shortcomings of the old Catholics were alluded to in plain language.’
3 Sequel, 2, p. 31.
4 Gerald Parsons is perhaps overly sanguine in his belief that the Irish immigrants ‘possessed a conception of Catholicism which was chronically different from that of both bishops and clergy and the English Catholic tradition,’ Religion in Victorian England. 1, p. 165. His judgement is on a surer footing, however, when he says that ‘in England, Roman Catholicism and Irishness were again mutually reinforcing, not least as a result of persecution and anti-Irish anti-Catholic prejudice.’ ibidem p. 169, n. 6.
5 Denis Gwyn ‘The Irish Immigration’ in Beck, George A. (ed.) The English Catholics 1850–1950 (London 1956), pp. 265–290, here p. 268.Google Scholar
6 ‘Out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome.’ The most infamous line read, ‘at present and till such time as the Holy See shall think fit otherwise to provide, we govern and shall continue to govern the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, and Essex, as ordinary thereof …’ Cf. Ward, 1, p. 543. Even Greville records that Wiseman ‘who ought to have known better aggravated the case by his imprudent manifesto,’ cf. Strachey, Lytton and Fulford, Roger (eds.). The Greville Memoirs 1814–1860 (London 1938), 5, (November 10 1850), p. 257.Google Scholar
7 Weintraub, Stanley, Victoria. (New York 1987), p. 213 Google Scholar.
8 Wiseman never considered himself as anything other than an English Catholic. In his ‘Open letter’ to Shrewsbury in 1841 he says: ‘Let us English Catholics mourn over our coldness in much that is of zeal. Let us English clergy lament our deficiencies … etc.’ Paedar MacSuibhne is wrong to suggest that Wiseman may be ‘claimed’ as the first Irish cardinal, cf. Cullen, 1, p. 161. It is a claim that Wiseman would not have appreciated.
9 Bossy, John The English Catholic Community 1581–1850 (London 1975), p. 387.Google Scholar
10 A classic example of this is the letter of Bernard Trappes-Lomax to Bishop Amigo in December 1920 in a dispute over affairs in Ireland. Trappes-Lomax writes: … the Catholic Union consists mainly of English gentlemen while we all know your foreign origin. That a person of your extraction could by some unhappy accident or intrigue have been appointed to an English bishopric is an insult to English Catholics while that you should set up as their representative or as a critic of their representatives is nothing short of an impertinence,’ cf. Michael Clifton Amigo: Friend of the Poor (Fowler Wright Books, 1987), p. 81.
11 Norman, Edward The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1984), p. 113.Google Scholar
12 Manning to Gladstone. Christmas 1890, B.L. Add. MS 444250 f. 307. However things are rarely straightforward in dealing with Manning’s assessments. In October 1862, Wiseman commenting to Manning on his own intellectual outlook when he arrived as a student in Rome at the age of 16, said: ‘I certainly had very few English prejudices to overcome when I reached Rome.’ To which Manning replied: ‘I … have always perceived in you the absence of nationality which strange to say I have found more vivid and obtrusive in English Catholics than in Anglicans. The former seem to me always to be eating leeks to prove their loyalty, and the latter to be disowning it out of shame of the English Erastianism.’ Manning’s analysis of the social pretentions of English Catholics is doubtless correct. He does seem to have changed his mind about Wiseman’s relations to those pretentions. The exchange of letters is given in Leslie, Shane Henry Edward Manning his Life and Labours (London 1921), p, xv.Google Scholar
13 Norman op. cit. p. 113.
14 This in part, as we shall see, was because of his association with the Earl of Shrewsbury who was regarded as ‘the enemy of Irish Catholics.’ Sequel, 2, p. 14.
15 March 19 1858. Russell-Wiseman correspondence AAW.
16 Ward, 1, p. 350.
17 Cullen regarded Wiseman as being ‘very hostile to Irishmen’, Cullen to Tobias Kirby, Rome, 25.8.1842, cf. Macaulay, Ambrose Dr. Russell of Maynooth (London 1983), p. 295 Google Scholar. Macaulay rejects the charge.
18 Newman was convinced that it was Cullen who prevented him from being made a bishop, cf. Tristram, Henry John Henry Newman: Autobiographical Writings (London 1956), p. 319.Google Scholar
19 Macaulay, op. cit., p. 295.
20 Wiseman, N. P. S. Impressions of a Recent Visit to Ireland (London 1859). p. 8 Google Scholar. The sentiments have a familiar ring in some political circles today.
21 Ibidem, p. 9.
22 Purcell, 1, p. 293.
23 Newman, J. H. Apologia Pro Vita Sua. (Revised edition 1865), p. 194.Google Scholar
24 Sequel, 2, p. 44.
25 Ward 1, p. 419.
26 Cf. Schiefen, Richard J. Nicholas Wiseman and the Transformation of English Catholicism (Patmos Press. Shepherdstown, U.S.A., 1984), p. 163.Google Scholar
27 Sir George Bowyer (1811–1883), convert 1850. Liberal M.P. for Dundalk 1852–68, and Wexford 1874–80. He attended upon Wiseman at the first Synod of Westminster. Lady Bellew’s correspondence with Wiseman can be found at AAW W3/3. The letter here is dated Holy Thursday 1851 .It is more likely that it was written in 1852. From internal evidence it is clear that it could not have been written in 1851 since Cullen is mentioned as Archbishop of Dublin, a position he did not assume until 1852. Lady Bellew seems to have spent some of her time trying to create mischief between the Irish and English bishops. She told Wiseman on 8 January 1851 that ‘…, the clergy of Ireland as a body have kept aloof from any expression of feeling towards the establishment of the (English) hierarchy or respect for yourself.’ AAW W/3 This is untrue as the many expressions of good will and support preserved in the Westminster archives bear witness.
28 In a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury in September 1842 Wiseman said: ‘if O’Connell were to put a ban upon the College it would be ruined. We are therefore obliged to manager so as not to make him our enemy. Dr. Walsh feels this most sensibly, and is perhaps more anxious than myself that we should steer clear of all political partisanship. And this will perhaps best explain much of my mode of proceeding,’ cf. UCA WP, 856.
29 Wiseman to Shrewsbury, 2 November 1847, UCA WP, 906.
30 Gwynn, Denis Daniel O’Connell (Cork 1947), p. 232.Google Scholar
31 Wiseman to Shrewsbury, Feast of St. Stanislaus, 1842, UCA WP, 856.
32 Wiseman to Shrewsbury, September 1844, UCA WP 853.
33 ‘A Second Letter to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps from the Earl of Shrewsbury ‘On the Present Posture of Affairs,’ 1841, p. 22.
34 Wiseman in an open letter to Shrewsbury in the same year touches on a similar theme when he mentiones the coolness and distance between the poor and the aristocracy, ‘which was unknown in Catholic times—(but) which the modern frenzies of Chartism and Socialism are doing their utmost to arouse into hatred and enmity,’ Wiseman, N. P. S. A Letter on Catholic Unity addressed to the Rt. Hon The Earl of Shrewsbury (London 1841), p. 7.Google Scholar
35 Daniel O’Connell Observations on the Corn Laws … ’ (Dublin 1842), p. 47.
36 Cf. Lucas, Edward The Life of Frederick Lucas M.P. (1886) 2, p. 292.Google Scholar
37 The announcement was placed on Wiseman’s behalf by Cardinal Bofondi, cf. Wiseman to Shrewsbury undated latter UCA WP, 495. The notice in the Gazette stated that Wiseman ‘non ha certo alcuna parte nella direzione e compilazione del giornale settimanale il Tablet, compilato da un cattolico, e che da alcuni si era ritenuto venisse da lui collabarato,’ UCA WP, 487.
38 Wiseman-Shrewsbury, 21 July 1849, UCA WP 948.
39 UCA WP, 954a.
40 Purcell, 1, p. 293.
41 Purcell, 2, p. 304.
42 Purceii 2, p. 327.
43 Sequel, 2, p. 136.
44 Purcell, 2, pp. 130–131.
45 Sequel, 2, pp. 141–142.
46 Ibidem p. 143.
47 O’Reilly, Bernard Life of John MacHale Archbishop of Tuam (New York and Cincinnati 1890), 2, p. 77.Google Scholar
48 Ibidem p. 80.
49 UCA WP, 906.
50 Earl of Shrewsbury Reply to Archbishop MacHale’s Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury (1848), p. 3. This letter was not in fact sold on the open market ‘in consideration of the excited state of public affairs in Ireland’.
51 The Tablet, 1 January 1848, p. 8.
52 The Tablet, 11 January 1848, p. 63.
53 February 2 1848, UCAP WP, 912.
54 March 18 1848, UCA WP, 918.
55 Shrewsbury to Wiseman, March 11 1848, UCA WP, 915.
56 Bernard O’Reilly, op. cit., 2, p. 114.
57 UCA WP, 506. No date is given but probably September or October 1847.
58 Public Record Office, Foreign Office 44. 29.
59 PRO F.O., 44. 30.
60 Greville Memories op. cit., December 7 1847, 5, p. 470. A little later (December 15) Greville records that he called on Russell (the Prime Minister and Minto’s father-in-law) and told him what Wiseman had said. Russell informed Gerville that he had ordered a bill to be drawn up to facilitate an exchange of ambassadors.
61 PRO F.O., 44. 234., 19th December 1847.
62 PRO F.O., 44. 227., 30th December 1847.
63 Cf. Cullen, 4., p. 307.
64 Ibidem, p. 310.
65 Shrewsbury to Wiseman, 25 March 1848, UCA WP, 549.
66 Bernard O’Reilly, op. cit. 2, p. 158.
67 Wiseman, N. P. S. Words of Peace and Justice addressed to the Catholic Clergy and Laity of the London District on the Subject of Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See (London 1848), p. 6 Google Scholar.
68 Edward Lucas, op. cit., I, p. 300.
69 ‘Words of peace and Justice etc’, p. 13.
70 Ibidem, p. 10.
71 Talbot, John Diplomatic Relations with Rome: a Letter to the Earl of Arundel and Surrey (London 1 March 1848), p. 19.Google Scholar
72 13 April 1848, UCA WP, 921.
73 UCA WP 530.
74 Sequel, 2, p. 221.
75 Ibidem p. 201.
76 AAW, Bellew-Wiseman correspondence, 1 November 1848.
77 UCAP WP, 936.
78 Cullen, 2, p. 159.
79 Cullen, 5, p. 20.
80 Christopher Hollis says in another context ‘In the northern rising, as later in the seminaries and through all the last chequered three hundred years of its history, English Catholicism was cursed with its besetting sin of snobbery’, The Monstrous Regiment (London 1929), p. 66.
81 Wiseman was forced to follow a policy of ‘conciliation and consolidation’. Any social radicalism on his part would have alienated the hereditary Catholics, cf. McClelland, V. A. Cardinal Manning His Public Life and Influence 1865–1892 (London 1962), p. 6.Google Scholar