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Lord Acton and the Free Church Policy of Baron Ricasoli
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
The years 1864 and 1869 fall between what are generally recognised as two milestones in the career of Lord Acton. On the one hand, this period in his life began with the important decision to stop publishing the Home and Foreign Review; on the other hand, it drew to a close with the beginning of Vatican I. Both of these events have long been acknowledged as decisive steps in Acton's progressive alienation from his fellow Catholics, the one because it marked the unsatisfactory conclusion of six years of conflict in England, the other because it brought on the momentous struggle over the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility. What is not generally recognised, however, is that the years 1864 to 1869 constitute in their own right a crucial phase in Acton's career. The tendency has been to skip from the end of his endeavours as a journalist in England to the opening of the Vatican Council, as if the five years in between were little more than an interlude. Even recent studies of Acton's career have dealt with this period in a very incomplete fashion, leaving much wider gaps than are required by the evidence now available. For instance, the volume of essays and documents bearing the promising title of Lord Acton: the Decisive Decade, 1864–1874, though it brings to light some important material, contains not a single document dating from the period between October 1866 and September 1869.
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References
1 McElrath, D. et al. , Lord Acton: the Decisive Decade, 1864–1674. Essays and Documents. Louvain 1970Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Decisive Decade).
2 Schuettinger, R. L., Lord Acton: Historian of Liberty, LaSalle, Illinois 1976Google Scholar.
3 [Acton], ‘Foreign Affairs’, Rambler, 3rd ser. v (May 1861), 135.
4 See Acton to Döllinger, 5 February 1865, in Ignai von Döllinger Briefwechsel, ed. Conzemius, V., 3 vols., Munich 1963–71 (hereafter cited as Döllinger Briefwechsel), i. 394–6Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., 385.
6 Acton to Wethereli, [between 22 November and 3 December 1866], Cambridge University Library (hereafter cited as C.U.L.) Add. MS 8119.
7 Ibid.
8 Acton to Döllinger, 7 December 1866, Döllinger Briefwechsel, i. 451.
9 Acton to Wetherell [between 22 November and 3 December 1866], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
10 See Acton to his wife, 31 January 1865; printed in McElrath, Decisive Decade, 54–5.
11 Acton to Wetherell, [between 22 November and 3 December 1866], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Acton to Döllinger, 14 January 1867, Döllinger Britfwechsel, i. 463; and Acton to Wetherell, Saturday-Monday [c. 9–11 February 1867), C.U.L. Add. MS 8119. For slightly different versions of Tonello’s terms, see King, Bolton, A History of Italian Unity, 2 vols., London 1899, ii. 330Google Scholar: and Cesare, R. de, The Last Days of Papal Rome: 1850–1870, trans. Helen Zimmern, London 1909, 362–3Google Scholar.
17 Acton to Wetherell, Saturday-Monday [c. 9–11 February 1867), C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. See also Acton to Wetherell [between 22 November and 3 December 1866], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
20 See Acton to Wetherell [between 22 November and 3 December 1866), C.U.L. Add. MS 8119; and Acton to Wetherell, Saturday-Monday [c. 9–11 February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
21 See especially Acton to Wetherell [between 22 November and 3 December 1866), C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
22 Ibid.
23 Acton’s earliest reference to these proposals is to be found in Acton to Döllinger, 31 January 1867, Doöinger Briefwcchsel, i. 469. A much more detailed account, however, is contained in Acton to Wetherell, Saturday-Monday [c. 9–11 February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119. A good report of Scialoja’s budget speech appeared in The Times for 23 January 1867.
24 Acton to Wetherell Imid-February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119: ‘I am supposing that the Church is sure to be pillaged, in any case. On that account the obligation to sell Church property is also necessary. It is not normal liberty. But we are providing for an extreme emergency, and seeking the means of saving the Church in the midst of a great public peril.’
25 Acton to Wetherell, Saturday-Monday [c. 9–11 February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 See Odo Russell to Lord Stanley, Foreign Office (hereafter referred to as F.O.) 43, 99a, fo. 121; and Acton to Wetherell, Monday [late February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
29 Ibid.
30 Acton to Döllinger, 15 February 1867, Döllinger Briefwechsel, i. 475; and Acton to Wetherell, [mid-February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
31 Acton to Wctherell [mid-February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 A further point which deserves to be raised, however, concerns the probable effects of the bill on the lower clergy. Acton’s attention had been drawn to this problem by his teacher, Ignaz von Döllinger, who was by no means well-disposed toward the Free Church Bill. In a sharply worded letter to Acton, Döllinger had complained that by freeing the Church from state control, the bill would remove all restraints from the power and authority of the pope and bishops, thus placing the lower clergy completely at their mercy. Döllinger himself preferred a moderately Erastian system, in which the authority of the state was used as a check upon the powers of the hierarchy. His remonstrations influenced Acton in the limited sense that, in forwarding his proposed revisions to the government, he included measures which he hoped might offset the danger to the lower clergy. One of these was a modified provision for appeals from ecclesiastical to civil courts, which he saw chiefly as a means of protecting the property rights of the lower clergy against capricious bishops. But this was his only concession to Döllinger’s Erastian approach. His own notions of how to safeguard the freedom of the lower clergy were quite different and we; contained in a letter which he sent along with his proposed amendments. The principal measure which he had in mind was that the theological faculties, recently excluded from the universities, should be re-established and that all priests should be ensured of adequate opportunities for education. As Acton told Wetherell: ‘The legitimate bulwark against hierarchical absolutism is religious science, not state influence. An ignorant clergy can be more easily tyrannised over than a learned clergy. It is acted on by fear, by interests by credulity … Liberty within the Church, security from the abuse of authority, can be given not by politics, but by science; not by the State, but by the University.’ (Acton to Wetherell [mid-February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119).
35 See Acton to Wetherell, Monday [late February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
36 Odo Russell to Lord Stanley, 23 February 1867, F.O. 43, 99a, fo. 93.
37 See, for instance, the Correspondence de Rome, 23 February 1867, 64, a copy of which is enclosed with Odo Russell’s despatch to Lord Stanley of 23 February 1867, F.O. 43, 99a, fos. 93–5.
38 See Acton to Wetherell [c. 25 February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119, where Acton writes: ‘There is no hope of a favourable election. The organs of the Holy See distinctly announce that Catholics are, generally, to stand aloof, and let things take their doomed course. But without the Catholics a Catholic parliament cannot be elected ….’ And again: ‘The revolutionary party profits by the fix the ministers are in, and wishes to deprive the Church both of wealth and freedom, as the protest of the Left [against the Free Church Bill] shows. Here [in Rome] they reckon on the ruin of the Italian state, and would not mind if the Catholics helped the revolutionists at the elections.’
39 Ibid. See also Odo Russell to Arthur Russell, 23 February 1867, F.O. 918, 84, fo. 61; and Odo Russell to Lord Stanley, 27 February 1867, F.O. 43, 99a, fo. 98.
40 Acton to Wetherell [c. 25 February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
41 Acton to Wetherell, Monday [late February 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
42 Ibid.
43 Acton to Wetherell, Friday [after 10 March 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
44 Odo Russell to Arthur Russell, 12 March 1867, F.O. 918, 84, fo. 66.
45 Ibid.
46 See especially the tribute to Acton in Odo Russell to Lord Clarendon, 18 June 1870; printed in The Roman Question: extracts from the despatches of Odo Russell from Rome, 1858–1870, ed. Noel Blakiston, London 1962, 445–6.
47 See, for example, Odo Russell to Arthur Russell, 16 March 1867, F.O. 918, 84, fo. 68.
48 [Acton), ‘Rome and Italy’, Chronicle, i (11 May 1867), 148. This was based substantially on Acton to Wetherell [c. 3 May 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
49 [Acton], ‘Italy and Rome’, Chronicle, i (15 June 1867), 266. This was based on Acton to Wetherell, Thursday [c. 9 May 1867], C.U.L. Add. MS 8119.
50 Ibid.