In a reflection this morning on Saint Joan of Arc – meditating on an evocative impressionist painting of the young Maid of Orleans – Stephen White says that Mary I, or Mary Tudor, was ‘the last Catholic ruler of England’.
I felt impelled to gently correct Dr. White, for that honour – such as it be – belongs not to Mary, but to James II (and the VII of Scotland), who governed the British Isles from 1685 to his deposition in the euphemistically-styled ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1689.
Not only was James the last Catholic ruler of England, he was also the last legitimate one, from the line of the Stuarts. William of Orange, who took his place, was appointed by the newly all-powerful Parliament. He happened to be married to James’ daughter Mary, who was raised Protestant. William himself was an interloper with but the vaguest of claims to the throne. Ever since, the Protestant kings and queens of England have been figureheads, with no real power, their authority gone with their Catholic identity.
As a sign of this loss, James II, on his way to exile in France, tossed the great seal of England into the running sewer called the Thames.
Even what spiritual prestige they once had – on what fumes of the one, true Church that still haunted Anglicanism – is now evaporated. Charles III is no longer ‘defender of the Faith’, but simply, ‘defender of faiths’, particularly the ‘faith’ that has become predominate in once-Catholic England. Whether Charles is even still a Christian is up for debate.
There’s hope, as a post yesterday by Kristen Ziccarelli points out. There’s a small but fervent revival of the Faith in England. Her countless saints and martyrs will not stop interceding that one day, perhaps, a Catholic monarch, and the Catholic religion, shall reign again.
