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Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected: III, 1796–1803
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
Extract
- ‘The abjuration of error ... is at all times a painful task.’
- ‘Let there be an end.’
The year 1796 was full of portent, both for the Church Universal and for its ‘little platoon’ in England. Bonaparte’s march through Italy seemed to threaten the Papacy with the fall which Berington had so complacently forecast. The refugee hordes of bedraggled French clergy gave point and substance to the general unease, and the Bampton lecturer for 1796 pressed home the parallels between the calamities afflicting the Church abroad, and those in England. Talking of the ‘circle of supremacy … fast contracting to the verge of a wretched territory’, and the ‘expiring pretensions of an anti-Christian vanity’, he praised Berington, Geddes and Throckmorton, who had ‘at length considered themselves as enfranchised from [Rome’s] spiritual domination’. The case of Bishop Berington, obstinate in his refusal to bow to the orthodox yoke and give the ‘full and open satisfaction’ demanded by Rome, brought the universal ills even nearer home. From Buckland rumours circulated that Berington’s ‘Decline and Fall’ of the Papacy was almost ready, and he was ‘on the point of attacking the Pope in his strongholds’. The Vicars girded themselves for battle. Late in 1795, Robert Plowden had published a Letter … upon Theological Inaccuracy, which had the effect of inflaming their zeal. In an attempt to clarify the meaning of the Oath, in 1790 a group of Cisalpine clergy had verbally approved a proposition stating that the Church had power ‘not to regulate by any outward co-action civil and temporal concerns of subjects and citizens, but to direct souls by persuasion in the concerns of eternal salvation’. This proposition, with the names of the clergy who approved it, appeared as Appendix IX of the third Blue Book. Plowden now claimed that it denied the power of the Church to absolve sins or to impose ecclesiastical censures; in support, he quoted the Bull Auctorem Fidei’s condemnation of similar propositions from the Synod of Pistoia. Plowden also condemned the ‘Staffordshire Creed’ as ‘contradictory to Catholic Faith’. Whatever the force of his arguments against the Staffordshire Creed, Plowden’s attack on the Blue Book propositions was a wanton reopening of old sores; James Archer described it as ‘a very stupid but, in my opinion, malicious pamphlet’. But the Vicars were in a warlike mood: they had already pored over the Bull Auctorem for its condemnation of positions ‘more or less analagous to the Throckmorton and Staffordshire clergy’s doctrine’. Plowden’s book roused them to action. Most of the ‘Blue Book clergy’ were in Douglass’ District, and urged on by Bishop Walmesley, he set about persuading them to retract. In July Douglass visited the Middle District and the Staffordshire Clergy and urged them to retract their ‘heretical’ creed; he also asked for their neutrality in the attempts to unseat Bishop Berington. But Joseph Berington had been busy rallying his colleagues, encouraging them to ‘speak out as [they] can’, and Douglass’ efforts were unavailing. John Kirk informed him that the Staffordshire Creed was ill-worded, not heretical, and that ‘should any violent measures be taken with [Bishop Berington] it is impossible his deposition should be tamely acquiesced in. Meetings must take place … and steps be taken.’
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1975
References
Notes
1 Plowden, Robert, A Letter to a Roman Catholic Clergyman upon Theological Inaccuracy (London, 1795), p. 167 Google Scholar.
2 BAA, C.1589, J. Berington to J. Kirk, 18 February 1800.
3 J. Berington, Memoirs of Panzani (1793), p. xix.
4 Ward, Bernard, Dawn of the Catholic Revival (London, 1909), 2, pp. 1–36, 115-29, 163-75Google Scholar.
5 Gray, Robert, Sermons on the Principles upon which the Reformation of the Church of England was established, Bampton Lectures for 1796 (Oxford, 1796), pp. 306-09Google Scholar.
6 AAW, Milner to Douglass, 4 May 1796.
7 AAW, Milner to Douglass, 10 January 1796.
8 R. Plowden, op. cit., pp. 1 ff, 28-32. The clergy who approved the Blue Book proposition were Charles Berington, Peter Brown, William Strickland, Joseph Wilkes, Arthur O’Leary, Thomas Meynell, Thomas Rigby, Charles Bellasys, Thomas Hussey and James Archer.
9 Ibid., p. 33 ff. For the ‘Creed’ see Rowlands, Marie, Recusant History, 9, p. 233 Google Scholar.
10 AAW, James Archer to Bishop Douglass, 26 November 1796.
11 AAW, Walmesley to Douglass, 2 March 1795.
12 AAW, Kirk to Douglass, 16 July 1796.
13 BAA, C.1355, Berington to Kirk, 10 July 1796.
14 Clifton, Walmesley to Douglass, and Gibson, 15 August 1796; Gibson to Walmesley, 24 September 1796; James Sharrock to Walmesley, 18 October 1796; Walmesley to Sharrock,15 October 1796.
16 Clifton, Douglass to Walmesley, n.d. received April 14 1796. Same to same, 22 April 1796.
16 AAW, Coombes to Douglass, 12 July 1796.
17 AAW, Gibson to Douglass, 7 June 1796; BAA, C1355, Berington to Kirk, 10 July 1796; Clifton, Gibson to Walmesley, 11 June 1796. Several of the Preston jurors were, it seems, intoxicated, and most of them ultimately ‘recanted’ in the Catholic chapel at Preston.
18 Considerations addressed to the French Bishops and Clergy now residing in England (London, 1796). I have been unable to trace a copy of this work. AAW, Walmesley to Douglass, 15 May 1796. The author was in fact a French Constitutional priest living in London: Douglass Diary (=DD).
19 Miraculous Events established by Authentic Letters from Italy (London, 1796)Google Scholar.
20 Berington, J., An Examination of Events termed Miraculous (London, 1796)Google Scholar.
21 Farm Street Archives, Milner to Plowden, 30 December 1796; AAW, Milner to Douglass, 29 October, 9 December 1796.
22 AAW, Milner to Douglass, 10 January 1796.
23 Clifton, Douglass to Walmesley, 31 October 1796.
24 Clifton, Walmesley to Douglas, 6 November 1796.
25 Leeds, Walmesley to Gibson, 27 December 1796.
26 Leeds, Douglass to Gibson, 23 December 1796; Upholland, Bannister to Rutter, 16 November 1796. AAW, DD, 16 January 1797.
27 Milner, J., A Serious Expostulation with the Rev. Joseph Berington upon his Theological Errors concerning Miracles (London, 1797)Google Scholar.
28 Farm Street, Milner to Plowden, 30 December 1796.
29 Panzani, p. 292.
30 Expostulation, p. 75.
31 Ibid., pp. 124-8.
32 Farm Street, Milner to Plowden, 30 December 1796.
33 AAW, Douglass to Berington, 11 February 1797.
34 Details in Downside Review, 88, pp. 246-69, whence some of the material used in this article is derived.
35 Berington, J., A Letter to the Right Reverend John Douglass (London, 1797)Google Scholar.
36 Farm Street, Milner to Plowden, 8 May 1797.
37 AAW, Walmesley to Douglass, 28 April 1797; same to same, 5 May 1797; Milner to Douglass, August 1810. This is the notorious abusive letter quoted in Ward, The Eve of Catholic Emancipation (London, 1911) 1, pp. 151-2.
38 AAW, Gibson to Douglass, 8 May 1797.
39 AAW, Bannister to Douglass, 15 November 1797; Greenway to Douglass, 26 November 1797. Cf. also Preston Record Office, Barrow Papers, RC CL/60, Barrow to Douglass, 3 December 1797.
40 AAW, Sharrock to Douglass, 10 April 1798.
41 BAA, C.1389, Berington to Kirk, 22 April 1797.
42 Clifton, Milner to Walmesley, 28 April 1797; Leeds, Walmesley to Gibson, 18 May 1797.
43 Leeds, Milner to Gibson, 3 August 1797.
44 Dawn, 2, pp. 145-8.
45 AAW, 47/59 Walmesley to Douglass, n.d. (June 1797), enclosing the address.
46 AAW, Bishop Berington to Douglass, 4 February 1797; Preston Record Office, Coghlan Papers, RC BU/14, J. Sharrock to Peter Coghlan, 16 October 1797.
47 Leeds, Milner to Gibson, 3 August 1797; Douglass to Gibson, 11 September 1797.
48 Throck MSS, Gate-box 8/15. Thomas Southworth to (?), n.d.
49 A Short Plain Statement of Facts (by the Staffordshire clergy) (Wolverhampton, 1798), pp. 11-14; Rowlands, , The Staffordshire Clergy, in Recusant History 9, pp. 234-5Google Scholar.
50 Short and Plain Statement, pp. 14-19. This was signed by John Carter, John Corne, Thomas Southworth, James Tasker, Edward Eyre, John Roe and John Kirk. Berington also signed his name at the proof stage, but eventually allowed it to appear. The other six members of the original ‘cabal’ had either died before 1797, or retracted: Recusant History, 9, p. 234.
51 BAA, C.1360, Berington to Kirk, 9 August 1796.
52 Reflections, pp. 68-70.
53 Throck. MSS, Gate Box 8/16, Thomas Southworth to (?), n.d.
54 Short and Plain Statement, p. 15.
55 BAA, C.1389, Berington to Kirk, 22 April 1797.
56 AAW, DD, 23 October 1797; Dawn 2, p. 148.
57 Dawn 2, p. 151.
58 Dawn 2, pp. 130-44. Sister Mary Cecily, O.P., The Politico-Religious Problem, an unpublished essay (copy in BAA) chap. 4, for a detailed discussion of Bishop Berington’s case. My grateful thanks are due to Sister Mary Cecily for her permission to read and cite this wrok.
59 Dawn, 2, pp. 152-4.
60 AAW, Bishop Berington to John Douglass, 18 November 1797.
61 AAW, Sharrock to Douglass, 14 December 1797.
62 AAW, Joseph Berington to Douglass, 1 December 1797.
63 AAW, DD, 2 January 1798, Douglass to Sharrock, 6 January 1798.
64 Rowlands, , Recusant History, 9, p. 236 Google Scholar.
65 Short and Plain Statement, pp. 19–22.
66 AAW, Gibson to Douglass, 27 February 1798; same to same, 12 May 1798.
67 AAW, Berington to Douglass, 10 April 1798.
68 AAW, Gibson to Douglass, 26 March 1798; Sharrock to Douglass, 11 May 1798.
69 BAA, C.1478, Bp. Berington to Joseph Berington, 23 May 1798 (with postscript by Dr Bew); C.1479, Joseph Berington to Bp. Berington, 24 May 1798; BAA, C1546 (verso C.1478), Douglass/Archer formula.
70 BAA, C.1480, J. Berington to John Kirk, 26 May 1798.
71 Ibid.
72 Short and Plain Statement, pp. iii-iv.
73 Ibid., p.v. Rowlands, , Recusant History, 9, p. 23 Google Scholar.
74 Rowlands, , Recusant History, 9, p. 237 Google Scholar; Dawn 2, p. 155-6.
75 AAW, J. Berington to Douglass, 24 December 1798.
76 BAA, C.1494, R. Beeston to Kirk, 24 July 1798.
77 Recusant History, 9, p. 237; Upholland, Bannister to Rutter, 12 August, 1798 (wrongly dated: 1797?).
78 Dawn, 2, p. 154; Leeds, James Appleton of Chillington to Bishop Gibson, 2 July 1798; AAW, John Perry to Douglass, 9 June 1799.
79 BAA, Berington to Kirk, 10 July 1798.
80 AAW, J. Greenway to Douglass, 22 December 1798; Milner to Douglass, 23 January 1799; Dawn 2, pp. 155, 228.
81 AAW, Thomas Berington to Douglass, 4 October 1798; BAA, C.1498, J. Berington to Kirk, 14 August 1798; C.1499, Thomas Berington to Kirk, 20 August 1798.
82 AAW, Gibson to Douglass, 6 October 1798.
83 AAW, J. Berington to Douglass, 7 June 1798.
84 BAA, C1502, J. Berington to Kirk, 4 September 1798.
85 List in BAA, C1535. The replies which have survived are to be found in BAA, C.1513-32.
88 BAA, C.1593, A. McDonald to Kirk, 9 December 1798.
87 BAA, C.1513, R. Prendergast to Kirk, 6 December 1798.
88 BAA, C.1516, C. Bellasyse to Kirk, 10 December 1798.
89 BAA, C1527, J. Archer to Kirk, 26 December 1798; C.1528, Charles Wheeler to Kirk, 26 December 1798.
90 BAA, C.1529, Christopher Taylor to Kirk, 27 December 1798.
91 AAW, James Sharrock to Douglass, 27 February 1802.
92 BAA, C.1514, Thomas Gabb to John Kirk, 9 December 1798.
93 BAA, C. 1520, J. Carne to Kirk, 14 December 1798.
94 The History and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester (Winchester, 1798).
95 Jerningham, E., Select Sermons and Funeral Orations … from the French of Bossuet … to which is prefixed an Essay … on the Eloquence of the Pulpit in England (3rd Edition, London, 1801), p. 149 Google Scholar.
96 Gentleman’s Magazine, 66, pp. 373-5.
97 Sturges, J., Reflections on the Principles and Institutions of Popery (Winchester, 1799), pp. 103, 107Google Scholar.
98 Gentleman’s Magazine, 69, (ii), pp. 653-4.
99 Gentleman’s Magazine, 69 (ii), pp. 450, 572-3; 70, p. 329.
100 Throck. MSS, Tribune folder 54, Edward Jerningham to Joseph Berington, n.d.
101 AAW, Milner to Douglass, October 1799 (n.d.).
102 Ush. MSS, 313, C. George Bruning to (?), 1 September 1799.
103 AAW, Douglass to Berington, 22 November 1799; Gentleman’s Magazine, 69 (ii), p. 1023; AAW, Fryer to Douglass, 2 July 1800.
104 AAW, DD, 11 February 1800 (Lenten Pastoral, printed 13 February 1800).
105 Dawn, 2, p. 157 ff.
106 BAA, C.1525, Rigby to Kirk, 21 December 1798.
107 Prop. Scritt. Ang., 5, ff 735-7: Berington to Cardinal Borgia, 2 March 1800.
108 Prop. Scritt. Ang., 5, ff. 735-7, Throckmorton to Borgia, 1 March 1800; DD, 1 March 1800. The action had been threatened by a number of the gentry who supported Wilkes (DD, 27 January).
109 BAA, C.1589, Berington to Kirk, 18 February 1800.
110 DD, 30 March 1800.
111 DD, 18 February 1801 ; AAW, Milner to Douglass (?) March, 1800; Sharrock to Douglass, 13 May 1800; Prop. Scritt. Ang., 5, ff. 754, Throckmorton to Borgia, 17 May 1800.
112 BAA, Berington to Kirk, 28 August 1800.
113 BAA, C.1597, Berington to Kirk, 7 March 1800.
114 Dawn, 2, p. 198 ff. Brady, W. Mazière, Anglo-Roman Papers (Paisley, 1890), p. 143 Google Scholar.
115 Leeds, Douglass to Gibson, 30 March 1799; Milner to Gibson, 25 April 1799; Sharrock to Gibson, 7 May 1799.
116 Leeds, Sharrock to Gibson, op. cit.
117 Leeds, Douglass to Gibson, 30 October 1799.
118 BAA, C.1600 Berington to Kirk, 21 March 1800. The Vicars were in fact considering the possibility of Bishops in ordinary, but feared the independence as ‘parochi’ the change would give the clergy: AAW, Sharrock to Douglass, 13 May 1800.
119 AAW, Douglass to Bew, 10 April 1800; Bew to Douglass, 3 April 1800.
120 BAA, C. 1633, Berington to Kirk (n.d.).
121 Leeds, Douglass to Gibson, 17 December 1800.
122 DD, 18 February 1801 ; printed circular, Douglas to clergy of London District, 20 February 1801.
123 Full text, Dawn 2, p. 214 (note); AAW, Berington to Erskine, 4 Jnauary 1801.
124 BAA, C.1644, Berington to Kirk 31 March 1801.
125 BAA, C.1635, Berington to Kirk, 4 January 1801;
126 BAA, C.1647, Berington to Kirk, 12 May 1801 ; Leeds, Sharrock to Gibson, 7 May 1801.
127 AAW, Copy of the ‘Retraction’, dated 20 August 1801. The Wilkes case petered out into a jurisdictional squabble, and had no further effect on the body at large.
128 AAW, James Sharrock to Bishop Sharrock, 27 February 1802.
129 Dawn, 2, p. 245.
130 AAW, Stapleton to Douglass, 2 January 1802.
131 BAA, C.1660, Berington to Kirk, 21 May 1802.
132 Brady, W. Mazière, Annals of the Catholic Hierarchy (Rome, 1877), p. 221 Google Scholar; Dawn 2, p. 244.
133 Heyer, Frederick, The Catholic Church from 1684 to 1870 (London, 1969), p. 199 Google Scholar.
134 Throck. MSS, J. Throckmorton to W. Throckmorton, 8 February 1793.
135 Jones, H.G., The Charity School Movement (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 153-4Google Scholar.
136 British Critic 15, p. 157; Gentleman’s Magazine, 69, p. 749.
137 Priestley, Works, 17, p. 69.
138 England, T., Life ofO’Leary (London, 1822), pp. 261–3 Google Scholar,
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140 O’Leary, Arthur, Address to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal (London, 1800), pp. 11, 14-15Google Scholar; AAW, Milner to Douglass, 23 February 1800; Preston Record Office, Coghlan Papers, Milner to Coghlan, 10 February 1800.
141 AAW, Douglass Papers, Minutes of Synods, The Revd. J. Hodgson. The ‘observanda’ also clamped down on theatre attendance by priests — a notorious Cisalpine failing, James Archer frequented the theatres to improve his preaching style, and Berington himself had produced a translation of Lessing’s Emilia Callotti which ran for three nights at Drury Lane : Rice University Studies, 52, pp. 7 ff; Milner, Serious Expostulation, p. 94.
142 Husenbeth, H.C., The Life of Bishop Milner (Dublin, 1862), pp. 530 Google Scholarff; Berington, J., A Literary History of the Middle Ages (London, 1814), pp. 326-7Google Scholar; Clarke, Kenneth, The Gothic Revival (Penguin Books, 1964), pp. 60, 87-98Google Scholar.
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144 P. Doyle, unpublished M.A. Durham Thesis, The Giffords of Chillington, p. 222, and the same writer’s ‘Patrons and Protégés’, Staffordshire Catholic History, Winter, 1966.
145 Ward, Eve of Catholic Emancipation 1, pp. 28ff; 2, p. 173ff; Birrell, Non-Catholic Writers, pp. 15-16.
146 Ward, Eve, p. 120; Birrell, loc. cit.; Linker, R.W., ‘English Catholics in the Eighteenth Century: an Interpretation’, Church History 35 (1966), p. 303 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (n. 72).
147 Eve, 2, pp. 23-55; Machin, op. cit., pp. 12-15.
148 Eve, 2, p. 29.
149 Charles Butler’s Letter-Books, BM Add. MSS, 25125-9: Butler to Berington, 13 November 1817, For an excellent summary of the disputes, Dr J. Connell’s University of Chicago Ph.D. Thesis, ‘The Roman Catholic Church in England, 1553-1850, a study in internal politics’, chapter 4, ‘The Vicars and John Milner’ (Copies in AAW and BAA).
150 Eve, 2, pp. 57-93; Henriques, U., Religious Toleration in England (London, 1961), p. 168 Google Scholar.
151 Ushaw PA, D. 21, Milner to (?), n.d.
152 BAA, C.1685, Berington to Kirk, 12 March 1804.
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154 Butler’s Letter Books, Butler to Lingard, 4-8 December 1809; Butler to Berington, 13 November 1817 — ‘I always thought the conduct of the Popes in regard to this country, had been very bad ; but... I never suspected that it had been as bad as I find it’.
155 Berington, , Literary History of the Middle Ages (London, 1814), pp. 184 Google Scholar if, 224 ff. The nineteenth-century owner (a priest) of the copy of the History in my possession has scrawled against one of Berington’s anti-papal sallies, ‘Is the man a Catholic?’.
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158 Catholic Miscellany, New Series, July-December 1828. pp. 85-99; Catholic Magazine 3, pp. 19-20, 205,303 ; Haile and Bonney, op. cit. p. 263. The Litany of Loretto was one of Milner’s favourite prayers.
159 Lingard, J., The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church (London, 1806)Google Scholar. Lingard constantly refers to the Pope’s ‘plenitude of authority’ — not a Beringtonian phrase, except in irony! Catechetical Instructions (London, 1840), p. 38.
160 Catholic Miscellany, loc. cit.
161 The British Review and London Critical Journal, 5 p. 511.
162 Henriques, Religious Toleration, pp. 136-74.
163 Henriques, op. cit. p. 146. For the sense of frustration such prejudice caused among Berington’s friends see Catholic Miscellany; Hexter, J.H., ‘The Protestant Revival and the Catholic Question in England 1778-1829’, in Journal of Modern History, 8, pp. 297–319 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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