If anyone doubts that the original political belief of the ancient Catholic Gael was that same Christian Roman imperialism that has ever been the mark of Catholic Christianity since the Resurrection of the Lord, they need only listen to this wonderfully beautiful old Gaelic song, Mo Ghile MearThis version is performed by Mary Black, and is an Irish tribute to Bonnie Prince Charlie, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the true King of Scotland, Ireland, and England (and France!) and true Prince of Wales, and who, as the commentary on this Youtube version rightly says, sought to put an end to religious persecution in the Three Kingdoms.
He inspired fierce loyalty wherever he went, even tho', alas, the cause was, in the end, lost. The very motto of his family, the Royal Stuarts, was Aymez Loyauté which is Old French for "Love Loyalty".
His beauty and gallantry could not fail to attract the warmest love and loyalty from the fair sex of all classes and some of the most famous songs about him were written by a woman, Carolina Oliphant of Gask, Lady Nairne, a lyric poetess called by her countrymen "the Flower of Strathearn" on account of her own beauty. Born at Gask, in Strathearn, her family ever grew white roses, the symbol of the Stuarts and of legitimate monarchy, in profusion at Gask House.
Prince Charles Edward Stuart was not a Scottish or Irish nationalist, nor any kind of nationalist. He believed in the Three Kingdoms, with three separate parliaments but with one king, the ancient Christian Constitution of the British Isles which guaranteed the fundamental freedoms of every man and woman through the Christian religion, love of God and fellow man, and the laws of men based upon the law of God.
Scotland before 1603 had a separate king but James I and VI merged the two crowns in himself.
Ireland had been a patchwork of kingdoms with one High King, Ard Rí na hÉireann, until Pope Adrian IV, in his Bull Laudabiliter (meaning "praise-worthily"), of 1155, placed Ireland under the rule of the Norman-Angevin King Henry II of England but still under the Pope, as a papal fief.
Pope Adrian made his Bull because of the disturbed condition of both Church and State in Ireland (testified to by no less an authority than St Edmund Campion SJ in his History of Ireland). Whether he was entitled to do so is a disputed question but what cannot be disputed is that the passage of time secured the new settlement, in accordance with canon, civil and moral law. The Bull was recognised by Popes Alexander III and Lucius III and ever after by the Holy See.
King Philip II of Spain and I of England and Ireland, and Queen Mary I (Tudor) of England and Ireland. Prince Charles Edward was the legitimate successor to Queen Mary. Indeed, so disturbed was Ireland at the time that Diarmaid Mac Murchadha (Dermot MacMorrough), King of Leinster, ousted by other war-like Irish kings and chiefs, invited King Henry II to invade and pledged an oath of allegiance to him. As a further thanks for his reinstatement, MacMurrough's daughter Aoife (Eve) was married to Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, a Cambro-Norman lord, known colloquially as "Strongbow".
Thereafter, the English kings were also styled "Lord of Ireland", Dominus Hiberniae, although Ireland continued to be ruled by its individual kings, like MacMorrough, in accordance with the devolved, distributist, subsidiarist feudal system.
After the Protestant Reformation King Henry VIII illegally made himself King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542. As the Act was passed after Henry VIII had been excommunicated twice by the Papacy, the title "King of Ireland" was not recognised initially by Europe's Catholic monarchs.
However, once Mary became Queen and made England Catholic once more, Pope Paul IV issued a papal bull in 1555 declaring King Philip II of Spain and Queen Mary of England to be King and Queen of Ireland. After Mary died in 1558, Philip made no claim to the crown, but the principle was established that the Crown of Ireland was recognized by the Holy See, from 1555, as a title of the English Crown.
Here's a toast to Charlie's health... Prince Charles Edward was a Unionist, but not a parliamentary Unionist like the Whigs and soft Tories. He was for "Home Rule" and self-government, as it had always anciently been, for each of the kingdoms of Scotland, Ireland and England, joined as brother to each other under one king who must protect their liberties and rights, from the highest to the lowest in each kingdom.
He did not believe in the hegemony of the new rich men who had plundered the monasteries and stripped bare the poor but, instead, he believed in that great Christian chivalric principle that the greater and richer the man, the more he owed a duty to his servants, followers and to his country and particularly to the poor and needy. Hence he commanded a great and loyal following who fought fiercely for him to recover the Crown from those exploiters, the treacherous Whigs, the liars and cheats who had deposed his father, King James II and VII, and tried to murder him, as they had murdered his great-grandfather, King Charles I.
The uprising and attempted restoration by Bonnie Prince Charlie of his father, King James III and VIII, was called The Jacobite Uprising This Jacobite Uprising of 1745 very nearly succeeded and Prince Charlie got as far as Derby in his military campaign.
The Bonnie Prince However, he was fatally persuaded to turn back and lost the momentum and, eventually, the war, and the remnants of his army were butchered savagely by the grotesque Whig and plunderer, the Duke of Cumberland, "Butcher" Cumberland, younger son of the usurping German Hanoverian, George II.
The Prince roamed the Highlands, hidden by loyal men, cared for by Flora MacDonald, and hunted by the Hanoverian government, until he eventually escaped to Europe where he was ever after in exile until his sad death.
Mo Ghile Mear was written by Seán Clárach Mac Dhomhnaill (John Clare MacDonell), c.1691-1757, in loving memory of the Bonnie Prince. It is particularly to be noted that the song-writer refers to him as "my Caesar", the title of the Christian Emperor since Roman times and sometimes borrowed to refer to any Christian king.
Here are the lyrics in both Gaelic and English.
Mo Ghile Mear
Curfa
Sé mo laoch mo Ghile Mear
‘Sé mo Chaesar, Ghile Mear,
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear.
Bímse buan ar buaidhirt gach ló,
Ag caoi go cruaidh ’s ag tuar na ndeór
Mar scaoileadh uaim an buachaill beó
’s ná ríomhtar tuairisc uaidh, mo bhrón
Ní labhrann cuach go suairc ar nóin
Is níl guth gadhair i gcoillte cnó,
Ná maidin shamhraidh i gcleanntaibh ceoigh
Ó d’imthigh sé uaim an buachaill beó.
Marcach uasal uaibhreach óg,
Gas gan gruaim is suairce snódh,
Glac is luaimneach, luath I ngleo
Ag teascadh an tslua ’s ag tuargain treon.
Seinntear stair ar chlairsigh cheoil
’s líontair táinte cárt ar bord
Le hinntinn ard gan chaim, gan cheó
chun saoghal is sláinte d’ fhagháil dom leómhan.
Ghile Mear ‘sa seal faoi chumha,
‘S Éire go léir faoi chlócaibh dubha;
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó cuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear.
Seal da rabhas im’ mhaighdean shéimh,
’s anois im’ bhaintreach chaite thréith,
Mo chéile ag treabhadh na dtonn go tréan
De bharr na gcnoc is I n-imigcéin.
Chorus
He is my hero, my gallant darling
He is my Caesar, gallant darling.
I've had no rest from forebodings
Since he went far away my darling.
Every day I am constantly sad
Weeping bitterly and shedding tears
Because our lively lad has left us
And no news from him is heard alas.
The cuckoo sings not pleasantly at noon
And the sound of hounds is not heard in nut-filled woods,
Nor summer morning in misty glen
Since he went away from me, my lively boy.
Noble, proud young horseman
Warrior unsaddened, of most pleasant countenance
A swift-moving hand, quick in a fight,
Slaying the enemy and smiting the strong.
Let a strain be played on musical harps
And let many quarts be filled
With high spirit without fault or mist
For life and health to toast my lion.
Dashing darling for a while under sorrow
And all Ireland under black cloaks
Rest or pleasure I did not get
Since he went far away my dashing darling.
For a while I was a gentle maiden
And now a spent worn-out widow
My spouse ploughing the waves strongly
Over the hills and far away.
Curfa
Sé mo laoch mo Ghile Mear
‘Sé mo Chaesar, Ghile Mear,
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó chuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear.
Bímse buan ar buaidhirt gach ló,
Ag caoi go cruaidh ’s ag tuar na ndeór
Mar scaoileadh uaim an buachaill beó
’s ná ríomhtar tuairisc uaidh, mo bhrón
Ní labhrann cuach go suairc ar nóin
Is níl guth gadhair i gcoillte cnó,
Ná maidin shamhraidh i gcleanntaibh ceoigh
Ó d’imthigh sé uaim an buachaill beó.
Marcach uasal uaibhreach óg,
Gas gan gruaim is suairce snódh,
Glac is luaimneach, luath I ngleo
Ag teascadh an tslua ’s ag tuargain treon.
Seinntear stair ar chlairsigh cheoil
’s líontair táinte cárt ar bord
Le hinntinn ard gan chaim, gan cheó
chun saoghal is sláinte d’ fhagháil dom leómhan.
Ghile Mear ‘sa seal faoi chumha,
‘S Éire go léir faoi chlócaibh dubha;
Suan ná séan ní bhfuaireas féin
Ó cuaigh i gcéin mo Ghile Mear.
Seal da rabhas im’ mhaighdean shéimh,
’s anois im’ bhaintreach chaite thréith,
Mo chéile ag treabhadh na dtonn go tréan
De bharr na gcnoc is I n-imigcéin.
Chorus
He is my hero, my gallant darling
He is my Caesar, gallant darling.
I've had no rest from forebodings
Since he went far away my darling.
Every day I am constantly sad
Weeping bitterly and shedding tears
Because our lively lad has left us
And no news from him is heard alas.
The cuckoo sings not pleasantly at noon
And the sound of hounds is not heard in nut-filled woods,
Nor summer morning in misty glen
Since he went away from me, my lively boy.
Noble, proud young horseman
Warrior unsaddened, of most pleasant countenance
A swift-moving hand, quick in a fight,
Slaying the enemy and smiting the strong.
Let a strain be played on musical harps
And let many quarts be filled
With high spirit without fault or mist
For life and health to toast my lion.
Dashing darling for a while under sorrow
And all Ireland under black cloaks
Rest or pleasure I did not get
Since he went far away my dashing darling.
For a while I was a gentle maiden
And now a spent worn-out widow
My spouse ploughing the waves strongly
Over the hills and far away.
Alas! To Lochaber no more....the Prince goes into exile - and over the water - forever more; but the loyal men shall be ever faithful to his memory. Aymez Loyauté!
+++
All very well but Charlie believed in the Divine Right of Kings. The description of what this means follows. But, had he been king, there would have been no democracy in the UK, just a dictatorship. He's a throwback, and would have led to more war, infighting, and repression.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia: The divine right of kings or divine right is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm, including (in the view of some, especially in Protestant countries or during the reign of Henry VIII of England) the Catholic Church. It is especially favored and promoted by unjust kings, because according to this doctrine, only God can judge an unjust king. The doctrine implies that any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It is often expressed in the phrase "by the Grace of God," attached to the titles of a reigning monarch.
Utter piffle, MDA.
ReplyDeleteYou simply demonstrate your own amazing ignorance of the issue and of history.
Wake up. Read a book. Learn. And make some effort to abandon your own lamentable ignorance.
I fear that you are yet another casualty of the low-level American education system and you tend to demonstrate this by thinking that Wikipedia is some kind of authority on such issues.
Only an ignorant non-scholar fathead thinks that the last word on any subject is Wikipedia.
You have clearly not read any of the great theologians on the subject. Have you ever read St Robert Bellarmine SJ? Or St Alphonsus Liguori CSSR? Or Francisco Suarez? Or Francisco Vitoria?
Do you even know whom they were?
Have you ever even heard of them?
No?
That does not surprise me. You are simply in no position to comment, so ignorant are you.
If you had read them you would understand just how fatuous your claim that even Catholic kings are not subject to the Catholic Church.
It is a matter of historical and legal fact that Christian kings were also subject to the Constitutions of their monarchies.
The original Jacobite, King James II himself (grandfather to Prince Charles Edward), was subject to the judgment of his own courts, under the Constitution, in the legal case of Godden v Hales 1686).
Sir Edward Hales, Baronet, was a gentleman of Kent who served as a member of the House of Commons from 1661 to 1681. In November 1673 he was appointed Colonel of a regiment of foot. From 1679 to 1685 he served as one of the Lords of the Admiralty. He was a close associate of King James II and VII, who appointed him a Privy Councillor, Deputy-Governor of the Cinque Ports, Lieutenant of Dover Castle, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and Master of the Ordnance.
Hales was one of the three men who accompanied King James when he attempted to leave the country from Faversham, 11 December 1688. When Hales eventually joined King James at St Germain, he was created Baron Hales of Emley, Viscount Tunstall, and Earl of Tenterden.
On 11 November 1685, Hales was formally received into the Catholic Church.
King James gave him the command of a regiment of foot, which would normally (in accordance with the Test Act of 1673) have required him to take the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, receive Holy Communion in the Church of England, and make a declaration against the doctrine of Transubstantiation; all of these actions are, as a matter of conscience, impossible for a Catholic.
His servant Arthur Godden brought a legal action against his employer; an informer in such cases usually received the fine which was due from the offender (in this case £500). Hales was thereupon convicted at the Rochester Assizes, 29 March 1686.
Hales appealed his conviction to the Court of King's Bench. Hales claimed that he had letters patent from the King allowing him to hold his commission without taking the required oaths. Godden claimed that such a clause in the commission was invalid.
The case was really about whether the King had the power to dispense from religious penal laws in individual cases. The whole scenario was in fact created by the government to prove this legal point. The case was heard by Lord Chief Justice Herbert (later Earl of Portland) and eleven other judges. By a majority of eleven to one the court found in favour of Hales, thus affirming the King's dispensing power.
Thus, whilst the judges found in favour of the King's power, they, in fact, sat in judgment on the powers of the King - i.e. the very thing you say never happens under the Divine Right of Kings.
Wrong again, MDA!
Moreover, the Constitution of the Three Kingdoms was democratic and decentralist. Instead of the centralised, Westminster-centred Parliament and government imposed by the Whigs, under the ancient Constitution - defend by the Jacobites - was decentralised to national governments, Scotland and Ireland.
The Constitution consisted of the Commons, Lords and Crown - not JUST the King - and was thus a balanced and democratic constitution.
Wrong again, MDA!
[continues]
[continued]
ReplyDeleteBy contrast dictatorships have no such balance and are often oppressive and outwith the law.
The Christian Kingdoms of Britain were not such but were balanced and subject to the Constitution.
Indeed, the contrast is staring you in the face:
(1) the supposedly representative and democratic government that followed the Whig revolution, was anything but: it was corrupt, centralist, narrow, bigoted, power-hungry, money-grubbing and oppressive. It introduced the most savagely oppressive Penal Code that had ever been seen in Europe, making minority religions illegal, forcing office-holders to be Anglicans and ripping up, disembowelling, decapitating and burning those who persisted in the practice of minority religions like the Catholic religion. Only terminally dense idiots think this "democratic" or non-repressive and free. These supposedly "liberal" and "freedom-loving" Whigs were still burning women at the stake for counterfeiting coins as late as 1790! You think that "free" and "democratic". Huh?
(2) King James was readily over-thrown - if he were so oppressive then how could he have been so readily overthrown? The truth is that the so-called "democratic" regimes of the 20th century have been the hardest to change, still less overthrow. What were the chances of over-throwing Stalin or Mao? Or Barack Obama for that matter? Nil.
(3) The supposedly "constitutionalist" Whigs (whom you seem to favour) were anything but constitutionalist: they claimed to sit in judgment on their own superior and did so illegally, immorally and unconstitutionally, for their own enrichment and self-service. It was the Jacobites, and those loyal to their sovereign, who were real democrats and constitutionalists.
No ruler rules but by divine right. Democratic politicians rule by divine right since all power to rule comes from God and by right of God, ultimately.
The error of our times is to believe in the fatuous belief that power comes "from the people" and that, thus, any popularly-elected government can do as it pleases until the next election, even to overthrowing basic moral laws.
And they do just that....and you think this is better?
Huh???
Wake up and smell the coffee, MDA.
And, for goodness sake, educate yourself and learn some history...
...and some sense.
Trib
PS. No. "By the Grace of God" does NOT mean the nonsense you spout. it simply means that every ruler rules only by the Grace of God and not on their own authority. As I said: wake up and smell the coffee!