Dean Phillpotts to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD DUKE, Stanhope, Durham, 5th June, 1828. I presume to obtrude on your Grace one very brief, but, I humbly submit, conclusive reason against a concordat. I send it now, thinking it just possible that such a measure may be suggested, perhaps urged, in the debate on Monday next, for it is well known to be favoured by several noble lords. Lords Dudley and Goderich have both, in conversation with me, pressed the necessity or high expediency of a concordat. To them and others I have answered that the measure appeared to me useless, because this country could obtain for itself by direct legislation all that Rome could give, and more than it probably would give; but I have not stated the argument which has been given in the enclosed, or in the former paper, to any person whatsoever. It would ill become me, and it is very far from my purpose, to presume to offer advice to such a mind as that of your Grace. But I venture to state that I am sure (on no light grounds) that it would give very great gratification to no small nor inconsiderable portion of the friends of your Grace's government, and would perhaps facilitate their favourable reception of any future plan for the extinction of this lamentable source of perennial dispute, if your Grace should think fit to avail yourself of the opportunity afforded by the approaching debate to say, that no mode of accomplishing the object could ever appear to you worthy of being entertained by the British Parliament, which did not proceed on the principle of giving real, effective, and adequate security to the Protestant Established Church; that unless that point could be provided for, Parliament would forget its first duty to this Protestant nation, and to the Protestant prince who has sworn to maintain, to the utmost of his power, the Protestant Established Church and the lawful rights of its ministers. If such securities can be devised (and it must be the ardent wish of every friend of his country to see them devised), the case will be different. But, meanwhile, it can only tend to mischief to pledge the House by any vague resolution like that which is now proposed. I am, my Lord Duke, with the greatest respect, your Grace's most obliged and most humble servant, HENRY PHILLPOTTS. [ENCLOSURE.] In the former paper it has been attempted to show that it is highly inexpedient for this Protestant country to enter into any treaty with Rome, or to alarm the people unnecessarily with any proposition to repeal the laws which prohibit communication with the Papal See. Further consideration has much strengthened this conclusion, and has furnished an argument, which, obvious as it is, appears to have been overlooked by all the friends of a concordat, but which seems to be absolutely irresistible. A concordat is utterly inconsistent with the OATH OF SUPREMACY. Every person who takes that oath thereby "declares that no foreign prince, person, prelate, State, nor potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm." But a concordat, in its very nature, is an express admission (it is built on it as its foundation) that the Pope has such jurisdiction, power, &c., within this realm. Why, else, is application made to him? If it be said that the Oath of Supremacy may be repealed-the answer is plain, that the proposal of such a repeal would excite an alarm and clamour which it would be very difficult to silence, and not very easy to prove unreasonable. It would add most largely to the other obstacles attending a sober and dispassionate consideration of this great question. To Lord Granville. MY DEAR LORD GRANVILLE, London, 6th June, 1828. I have received your letter; and I have transmitted to the King, who is at Windsor, that which you had addressed to his Majesty. I have not yet received his Majesty's answer. But I am convinced that he will feel the same concern that I do that his Majesty should be deprived of your valuable services at Paris. Believe me, my dear Lord Granville, ever yours most sincerely, WELLINGTON. [918.] To the Marquess of Anglesey. [ 919. ] MY DEAR LORD ANGLESEY, London, 11th June, 1828. I have this day seen the King, and have received his permission to write to you to propose Lord Francis Leveson Gower to be Secretary to the government in Ireland.* I beg you to let me know as soon as you can whether this appointment will be agreeable to you. Believe me, &c., WELLINGTON. * Upon Mr. Huskisson's resignation of the Seals of the Colonial Department, Lord Francis Leveson Gower had resigned the office of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the Right Hon. William Lamb that of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant. [920.] To the King. London, 13th June, 1828. Since I saw your Majesty I have spoken to Mr. Calcraft; who has accepted the office of Paymaster of your Majesty's forces. I have reason to believe that Lord Francis Leveson Gower will accept the office of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; of which I will make him the offer as soon as I shall receive the answer of the Lord-Lieutenant to the letter which I wrote to him on Wednesday, after I had spoken to your Majesty on this subject. All of which is submitted to your Majesty by your Majesty's most dutiful and devoted subject and servant, WELLINGTON. Lord Cowley to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY DEAR ARTHUR, Vienna, 13th June, 1828. You will easily conceive that Prince Metternich is delighted at the late changes in England, and particularly so at the appointment of Lord Aberdeen to the Foreign Office. If you mean, however, to keep him steadily with us upon the Greek and Turkish questions, you must be very communicative to him both in London, through Esterhazy, and through the diplomatic agent here, let him be who he may. I am sorry to say that Tatistcheff has great influence over him, and, I believe, was principally instrumental to the appointment of the Prince of Hesse Hombourg to proceed to the Russian head-quarters. He thinks that Tatistcheff is devoted to him. Believe me ever, my dear Arthur, most affectionately yours, COWLEY. Dean Phillpotts to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD DUKE, Stanhope, Durham, 14th June, 1828. Even at the hazard of appearing presumptuous I must gratify myself by expressing, what I most sincerely and strongly feel, the highest delight at reading your Grace's speech on Tuesday last. It is impossible that such a speech should not largely contribute to prepare the minds of all parties for a fair settlement of the great question to which you then addressed yourself, and for confiding in your Grace's most wise and most constitutional intentions in respect to that settlement. Having taken this great liberty of adding my humble suffrage to those applauses which must have from so many higher quarters reached your ear, I venture on making one or two very slight remarks on points, where, probably from the error of the reporters, there appears to have been a slight inaccuracy. Your Grace will, I fervently hope, ascribe my presumption to its real cause,-an earnest wish that all the facts of the case should be present to your powerful mind when you decide on the course you shall eventually pursue. Your Grace is represented to have said, that "the fact was plain, from the circumstance of concordats being granted, that the sovereigns of other countries found themselves unable to govern their Roman Catholic subjects without the intervention of the Pope. The Emperor of Russia, notwithstanding his power, was compelled to call in the assistance of the Pope, by means of a concordat,"to govern his Roman Catholic subjects.” Forgive me if I say that I apprehend the fact to be directly contrary, that the Emperor of Russia has no concordat with the Pope, and that he governs his Roman Catholic subjects not only without the assistance, but in spite of the Pope. The conclusion which is, I think, to be drawn from this fact is, that every other government, if it is as strong and firm as that of Russia is, and as, I venture to submit, that of England in such a case ought to be, may govern its Roman Catholic subjects with equal disregard of the power or wishes of the Pope. I am pretty confident that your Grace would, on inquiry, find the case of Russia to be nearly as follows :- The Empress Catharine wished to make a certain Roman Catholic Bishop of Mallo (in partibus) Archbishop of Mohilow. This person had permitted the Jesuits of White Russia (after the suppression of their order) to take novices, in conformity, as he said, with the intentions of Clement XIV. and Pius VI. The ministers of France and Spain required of the Pope that he should be enjoined to make a recantation. Pius, in great distress, told the Empress that he could not reward a prelate who had dared to put a false construction on one of his briefs, and to attack the Bull of suppression of the Jesuits. Catharine was firm. She said, that "She had availed herself of her right, in conferring upon the Bishop of Mallo the archbishopric of Mohilow;" and as the Pope delayed sending to him the pall, she, of her own mere will and power, entituled the Bishop of Mallo Archbishop of Mohilow OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. Pius yielded; and Catharine thanked him for the good grace with which "he had been pleased to bestow the pall on a man whom she had made archbishop." From that time it will be found, if I mistake not, that the claim of right on the part of the Emperor is regularly acted upon. He nominates the person to be elected bishop; the Catholic Consistory in Poland elects, and the Pope prudently confirms the election. But the whole is done without a concordat. I believe I am right in adding, that by the new constitution of Poland the right of naming the archbishops and bishops of the different religious communions is reserved to the Crown. I will venture to trouble your Grace with the enclosed copy of a Ukase of 14th March, 1827, which confirms the view here taken, and shows the independent course followed by the Court of St. Petersburg. Now, I repeat that the fair conclusion from this state of things in Russia is, that any government which is strong and firm, may set the Pope at defiance in governing its Roman Catholic subjects. It would, of course, demand the exercise of much prudence, as well as vigour; but no concordat is necessary. Happily, in England and in Ireland the due control can be obtained without going to the lengths on which the Empress Catharine ventured, I mean without a forcible interference in the election of Romish bishops. The other point on which I would presume to remark relates to the Oath of Supremacy. Your Grace is represented to have said that, by that oath, the Church of England acknowledges the King's supremacy. Now, I apprehend that your Grace will find that the King's supremacy is no longer affirmed by that oath, which, in truth, simply denies the authority of any other power, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm. An alteration to this effect was made in the oath at the Revolution; and the assertion of the King's supremacy is no longer required as a qualification for any office, or for a seat in Parliament. The Church, indeed, admits the King's supremacy, but this is by its 37th Article (not by any oath), and therefore it affects not the laity, who are only called upon to deny the spiritual jurisdiction of any foreigner. This alteration was made in accommodation to the scruples of certain Protestant dissenters. By venturing to write thus to your Grace I prove my confidence in your candour as well as patience. I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, with the greatest respect, your Grace's most obliged and most humble servant, HENRY PHILLFOTTS. P.S.-It is perhaps worth adding, that it was on occasion of the Bishop of Mallo's being made Archbishop of Mohilow, that the words Hæreticos persequar et impugnabo were first expunged from the oath taken by the Roman Catholic bishops to the Pope, in Ireland as well as in Russia. Archetti, the Nuncio, being questioned relative to the kind of oath the Archbishop was to take, answered that he must swear not to tolerate heretics and schismatics: that this was part of the Nuncio's instructions, from which he could not depart. In reply, he was bluntly told that those instructions betrayed a want of sense and of reflection; that it was ridiculous to impose on a subject the obligation of persecuting those who lived under the same sovereign as himself. At length everything was arranged; the Nuncio was authorised to pass over in silence the oath thus amended. Archetti extolled the Bishop of Mallo to the skies, in spite of his personal character and of his insult to the Bull of the Pope, and consecrated him, as well as his Coadjutor Benilawski, an ex-Jesuit, whom also Catharine appointed. It is not the least remarkable part of the story that it was in consequence of Catharine's firmness in respect to the oath, that the omission was most reluctantly made, of which we have heard so much from the Irish bishops in their evidence before the Committees, and from the advocates of “ Emancipation," who all state it as a proof of the moderated tone of feeling at Rome, and of the extinction of all undue hostility towards other Churches. |