Tea at Trianon: The Hunted Priest

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, September 18, 2016

The Hunted Priest

From The Christian Review:

Brian Arrowsmith was born in 1585 in the small hamlet of Haydock, Lancashire near England’s west coast to devout Catholic parents. Faith and perseverance ran in his blood. Because of their faith, both of his grandfathers were regulars at the local prison, and in one instance his grandfather Nicholas was forced to attend a protestant service, where he was promptly dragged back to prison after loudly singing the hymns in Latin.

Brian’s parents fared no better, and were often dragged to jail, leaving a young Brian to feed and care for his siblings. Though his family came from noble stock, the perpetual fines soon drove them to destitution and near starvation. During this hardship, Brian never abandoned his faith, and by his teenage years, he began considering the priesthood; a vocation that meant certain imprisonment or martyrdom.

When he was 20, Edmund was able to sneak out of England to study at the College of Doui in France, a university now immortalized by the Douay Rheims Bible translation. While at Douai, Brian received the sacrament of confirmation, where he took the name Edmund, in honor of the martyr Edmund Campion, a name he was fittingly called for the rest of his life. Edmund was ordained 1612 and was presented with an unenviable choice: instead of remaining in the comforts of Catholic France, Edmund chose instead to return to his native England and tend to his hunted flock. (Read more.)