Our Lady's Nativity and the Great Siege of Malta of 1565: "Victoria Day" of the Knights of Malta

8 September is the Feast of our Lady's nativity but it is also Victoria Day for the Knights of Malta, the day when, with our Lady's help, they defeated the Ottoman Turkish invasion of their home and headquarters on the island of Malta.

It is is also "Malta Day" for the same reason.

The Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta; the Knights of Malta; the Knights of Rhodes; and Les Chevaliers de Malte) is an organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1080 to provide care for poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Land.

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade it became a religious/military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defence of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Following the loss of Christian territory in the Holy Land, the Order operated from Rhodes, over which it was sovereign, and later from Malta under the grand magistry of the renowned religious, soldier and defender of Malta from the Turks, Prince and Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, after whom Valetta in Malta is named.

After the loss of the Holy Land and years of moving from place to place in Europe, the Knights were established on Malta in 1530, when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, as King of Sicily, gave them Malta, Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, which they were to send on All Souls Day to the Viceroy of Sicily, who acted as the King's representative. (This historical fact was used in Dashiell Hammett's famous book The Maltese Falcon).

It was from here that the Hospitallers continued their actions against the marauding Muslims and especially the savage Barbary pirates.

Although they had only a small number of ships, the Muslim Ottomans were less than happy to see the order resettled. Accordingly, Sultan Suleiman assembled another massive invasion force in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta, and in 1565 invaded, starting the Great Siege of Malta.This siege proved one of the great victories of history for an undermanned and vastly outnumbered defence force, numbering some 700 knights and about 8000 soldiers.

At first the battle looked to be a repeat of the earlier defeat of the Knights at Rhodes. Most of the cities were destroyed and about half the Knights died in battle. On 18 August the position of the besieged was becoming desperate: dwindling daily in numbers, they were becoming too feeble to hold the long line of fortifications. But when his council suggested the abandonment of Il Borgo and Senglea and withdrawal to Fort St. Angelo, Grand Master La Valette remained obdurate.

The Viceroy of Sicily had not brought help. Possibly the orders of his master, Philip II of Spain, were so obscurely worded as to put on his own shoulders the burden of a decision – a responsibility which he was unwilling to discharge because defeat would mean exposing Sicily to the Turks. Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated until the indignation of his own officers forced him to move, and then the battle had almost been won by the unaided efforts of the Knights.

On 23 August came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers. It was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. The plight of the Turkish forces, however, was now desperate. With the exception of Fort St Elmo, the fortifications were still intact. Working night and day, the garrison had repaired the breaches, and the capture of Malta seemed more and more impossible. The terrible summer months had laid many of the troops low with sickness in their crowded quarters. Ammunition and food were beginning to run short, and the Turkish troops were becoming more and more dispirited at the failure of their numerous attacks and the unending toll of lives.

Dragut

The death of Dragut, a corsair and admiral of the Ottoman fleet and skilled commander, on 23 June, had proved an incalculable loss. The Turkish commanders, Piyale Pasha and Mustafa Pasha, took few precautions, and, though they had a huge fleet, they never used it with any effect except on one solitary occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements.

On 1 September they made their last effort, but all threats and cajoleries had little effect on dispirited Turkish troops, who refused any longer to believe in the possibility of capturing those terrible fortresses. The feebleness of the attack was a great encouragement to the besieged, who now began to see hopes of deliverance. Perplexity and indecision of the Turks were cut short by the news of the arrival of Sicilian reinforcements in Mellieħa Bay. Unaware of the small size of this new force, they hastily evacuated and sailed away on 8 September, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, ever after celebrated by the Order of Malta as "Victoria Day".

At the moment of the Turkish departure the Order had left 600 men capable of bearing arms, but the losses of the Ottomans had been yet more fearful. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Turkish army at its height at some 40,000 men, of which but 15,000 returned to Constantinople. The siege is portrayed vividly in the frescoes of Matteo Perez d'Aleccio in the Hall of St. Michael and St. George, also known as the Throne Room, in the Grand Master's Palace in Valletta. Four of the original modellos, painted in oils by Perez d'Aleccio between 1576 and 1581, can be found in the Cube Room of the Queen's House at Greenwich, London. After the siege a new city had to be built – the present city of Valletta, so named in memory of the Grand Master who had sustained this siege.

In 1607, the Head of the Order, the Grand Master, was granted the rank of Reichsfürst (Prince of the Holy Roman Empire). In 1630 the Grand Master was awarded ecclesiastic equality with the Cardinals and the uniquely hybrid style "His Most Eminent Highness", reflecting both qualities qualifying him as a true prince of the Church.

Following the Christian victory over the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto in 1570, the Knights continued to defend Christendom from Barbary pirates and Muslim raiders.

The Patron Saint of the Order is our Lady of Philermo whose image was first acquired when the Knights were still settled on the island of Rhodes. The icon, depicted below, is ancient and famous.

Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us!

...

Our Lady's Nativity and the Great Siege of Malta of 1565: "Victoria Day" of the Knights of Malta

13 OCTOBER 2011
FEAST OF BLESSED GERARD
INSTALLATION OF THE 57th LORD GRAND PRIOR OF ENGLAND
OF THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

IAN SCOTT of ARDROSS

The Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Council in Malta

On 13th October 2011 the 57th Lord Grand Prior of England of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Ian Scott of Ardross, made his vows of office during solemn Mass in the 12th century crypt chapel of the former Priory Church of St John of Jerusalem, Saint John's Square, Clerkenwell EC1M 4DA, now the seat of the Anglican Venerable Order of St John.

The last such ceremony took place in 1558 in the reign of Queen Mary I, when Thomas Tresham, the last Grand Prior of the Order of St John before the Reformation, was installed in the Priory Church.

On this the Feast Day of the founder, Blessed Gerard, the relic of his jawbone, brought to England by Sir George Bowyer in 1830, one of the great treasures of the Order of Malta in England, was venerated and used to give the final blessing, the first visit of the relics to this historic priory church, making the occasion a double celebration.

Mass was held at 7pm and the ceremony was followed by a drinks reception in the Museum of the Order Church.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for him

Blessed Gerard, pray for him

Blessed Adrian Fortescue, pray for him

...

St George's Day - 23 April

The Feast of St George

Today is the Feast of St George, Protector of the English Realm.

St George was born to a Christian family during the late third century. His father was from Cappadocia and served as an officer of the Roman army. His mother was from Lydda in Palestine.

St George followed his father into the army. It seems he was of equestrian, or knightly and thus noble, rank in Roman society and he appears to have pursued the cursus honorum beginning as a cavalryman or knight, a position reserved only for those of the knightly class. The better of the cavalry or knights went on to command as Decurion and later were selected as Tribunus militis or Military Tribune, an officer who was one of 5 staff officers in a legion.

The Roman Senate was selected from the ranks of the knights or equestrian class, and the Patrician and Senatorial classes, the supreme nobility of Rome, who were able to trace their lineage to the Senatorial families of the early days of Rome, especially those who had seen extensive military service in defence of Rome and its empire.

The Roman Senate

St George was stationed in Nicomedia as a member of the personal guard attached to Roman Emperor Diocletian and was promoted comes or Count, a title, meaning a “companion”, or sometimes a chamberlain, of the Emperor, an imperial appointment either civil or military (from this idea derived the Counts-Palatine or Paladins of Charlemagne).

Many titles have a military origin including those of imperator (later Emperor but originally the commander-in-chief of the army, lit., “giver of orders”), dux (later Duke or army commander), legatus (Legate – the commander of a legion, and of senatorial rank), tribunus (staff officer of equestrian class already mentioned), praefectus castrorum (Prefect of the Camp, the most veteran soldier in the Legion but non-equestrian), primus pilus (“first spear”, the most senior centurion and commander of the first cohort, non-equestrian but usually ennobled on retirement), pilus prior (first centurion of each cohort and often its commander), primi ordines (the 5 centurions of the first cohort), centurio (centurion – the commander of a “century” of 100 men) and optio (the second-in-command of a century but able to read and write, usually).

Julius Caesar, Roman general, senator and imperator

Each legion had 10 cohorts usually each of 6 centuries (sometimes divided into 3 maniples of 2 centuries each), plus 300 or more cavalry and assorted light infantry, light cavalry and auxiliaries (often of non-Roman origin) totalling about 6,600 men.

A Legate is thus roughly equivalent to a brigadier-general, a Tribune to a captain, major or colonel, a pilus prior to a non-equestrian lieutenant colonel, risen from the ranks, and a centurion to a non-equestrian captain or major, risen from the ranks.

In 303 Diocletian issued an edict authorizing the systematic persecution of Christians across the Empire.

St George was ordered to participate in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticized the imperial decision. An enraged Diocletian ordered his torture and execution.

After various tortures, including laceration on a wheel of swords, in which he was miraculously resuscitated three times, St George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on 23 April 303.

A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra to become Christian as well and she joined St George in martyrdom.

St George’s body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

The story of St George and the Dragon is by no means necessarily impossible, since reptiles of various sorts were often called dragons in former times. Even today, the Komodo dragon is still so called.

Dragons of today:
Indonesian Komodo dragons, up to 10 feet in length and up to 365 lbs weight, poison-mouthed and potentially lethal, can be seen to this day

Ancient depictions of “fire-breathing” dragons have been misinterpreted.

They were so depicted to indicate the poisonous breath and mouth of such animals. Since it is the case that the Komodo has precisely such a poisonous mouth, by virtue of the bacteria living therein, venom and its diet, the earlier depictions start to look remarkably scientific and not mythical at all. The deadliest bacteria in the Komodo dragon saliva appears to be a very deadly strain of Pasteurella multocida, from studies performed with lab mice.

Alternatively, the dragon might have been a crocodile or alligator which certainly can be found in North Africa near water.

This dragon was said to have made its nest at the spring providing water for a city in the Middle East. The citizens had to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, in order to collect water. To do so, and to distract the dragon, each day they had to offer the dragon at first a sheep, then a human sacrifice.

In their heathenism, they treated the dragon as an evil spirit that had to be placated. The victim was chosen by drawing lots. One ill-favoured day, the lot fell upon the daughter of the king who begged for her life but this partiality was rejected by the citizenry.

St George, who was in the country with his troops, scorned the heathen weakness of the citizenry and set out, warmly encouraged of course by the king, to rescue the princess. He did so, slaying the dragon in mortal combat. The grateful citizens abandoned heathenism and converted enthusiastically to the religion of St George, namely Christianity.

Ever after, the story was seen as the triumph of Christian truth over pagan superstition and the supernatural over corrupted nature. Inevitably, it became a great Christian allegory. However, the assumption that it must, therefore, be a fable and not true, is a false assumption. The Bible is full of allegory but that does not mean it is false.

A church built in Lydda during the reign of the Emperor Constantine I (306–337), was consecrated to St George and his cultus became one of the greatest in Christendom.

This church was destroyed in 1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the Western Crusaders who quickly came to embrace his cult. In 1191 the church was again destroyed by the Ayyubid Sultan, Sala’haddin (Saladin), during the 3rd Crusade.

The Crusaders wore the red cross of St George, popularised by the Knights Templar

By the fifth century the cult of St George reached the Western Roman Empire and in 494, George was canonised as a saint by Pope Gelasius I. The cult was promoted much in England by King Alfred the Great.

An apparition of St George is said to have heartened the Franks at the Siege of Antioch, 1098, and made a similar appearance the following year at Jerusalem.

Chivalric military orders of St George were established in Aragon (1201), Genoa, Hungary, and by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor.

The Byzantine emperors had a great devotion to St George and the Palaeologue emperors created an order to restore the Labarum Guard of the Emperor Constantine, being the 50 knights who guarded the Labarum, a standard emblazoned with the Chi-Rho symbol that Constantine had seen in the sky before his victory on the Milvian Bridge.

They dedicated this Order to St George giving it the symbol of the Cross and the Chi-Rho surrounded by the initials IHSV standing for "In Hoc Signo Vinces" - "In this Sign shalt thou conquer". The Order was bequeathed to the Farnese family by the Palaeologues in exile who became its Grand Master.

Here is the Gold Star of the Order with the Chi-Rho and the IHSV - In Hoc Signo Vinces.

The Star of the Constantinian Order of St George

Today the Order's Grand Master is HRH the Infante Don Carlos of Spain.

King Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George. In England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St. George's Day a great feast day in the kingdom of England and, famously, his name was invoked by English kings in battle, not least King Henry V at Agincourt.

"St George for Merrie England"

His feast was raised to a Festum duplex at a church council in 1415, on the date that had become associated with his martyrdom, 23 April.

William Shakespeare was born and died on 23 April, St George's Day.

William Shakespeare, born and died on St George's Day

The Order of the Garter is still given in the name of “God, our Lady and St George” and features an image of St George slaying the Dragon. The hip decoration, at the bottom of the sash, is still called “the lesser George”.

The original Garter Star was always diamond-encrusted until, after the illegal seizure of the throne by the Protestant German Hanoverians, the diamonds were only retained for the sovereign and consort.

The Garter blue of the sash was also darkened so as to distinguish it from the ancient colour which was associated with the Stuarts.

The diamond-encrusted Garter star

The Garter Star features, to this day, in a great many military symbols e.g. the rank stars of officers in the Household Cavalry and Household Division and in the Honourable Artillery Company. St George features in a great many other military symbols and traditions of the British armed forces and in British society generally.

St George’s Day is, indeed, a great day to be celebrated in the Kingdom of England and for Great Britain.

The Queen in the Garter procession as Sovereign of the Order.
The Garter is still conferred in the name of "God, our Lady and St George".


"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is set from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry:

'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' "

...

St George's Day - 23 April 2009

Happy Feast of St George!

Today is the Feast of St George, Protector of the English Realm.

St George was born to a Christian family during the late third century. His father was from Cappadocia and served as an officer of the Roman army. His mother was from Lydda in Palestine.

St George followed his father into the army. It seems he was of equestrian, or knightly and thus noble, rank in Roman society and he appears to have pursued the cursus honorum beginning as a cavalryman or knight, a position reserved only for those of the knightly class. The better of the cavalry or knights went on to command as Decurion and later were selected as Tribunus militis or Military Tribune, an officer who was one of 5 staff officers in a legion.

The Roman Senate was selected from the ranks of the knights or equestrian class, and the Patrician and Senatorial classes who were able to trace their lineage to the Senatorial families of the early days of Rome, especially those who had seen extensive military service in defence of Rome and its empire.

The Roman Senate

St George was stationed in Nicomedia as a member of the personal guard attached to Roman Emperor Diocletian and was promoted comes or Count, a title, meaning a “companion”, or sometimes a chamberlain, of the Emperor, an imperial appointment either civil or military (from this idea derived the Counts-Palatine or Paladins of Charlemagne).

Many titles have a military origin including those of imperator (later Emperor but originally the commander-in-chief of the army, lit., “giver of orders”), dux (later Duke or army commander), legatus (Legate – the commander of a legion, and of senatorial rank), tribunus (staff officer of equestrian class already mentioned), praefectus castrorum (Prefect of the Camp, the most veteran soldier in the Legion but non-equestrian), primus pilus (“first spear”, the most senior centurion and commander of the first cohort, non-equestrian but usually ennobled on retirement), pilus prior (first centurion of each cohort and often its commander), primi ordines (the 5 centurions of the first cohort), centurio (centurion – the commander of a “century” of 100 men) and optio (the second-in-command of a century but able to read and write, usually).

Julius Caesar, Roman general, senator and imperator

Each legion had 10 cohorts usually each of 6 centuries (sometimes divided into 3 maniples of 2 centuries each), plus 300 or more cavalry and assorted light infantry, light cavalry and auxiliaries (often of non-Roman origin) totalling about 6,600 men. A Legate is thus roughly equivalent to a brigadier-general, a Tribune to a captain, major or colonel, a pilus prior to a non-equestrian lieutenant colonel, risen from the ranks, and a centurion to a non-equestrian captain or major, risen from the ranks.

In 303 Diocletian issued an edict authorizing the systematic persecution of Christians across the Empire. George was ordered to participate in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticized the imperial decision. An enraged Diocletian ordered his torture and execution.

After various tortures, including laceration on a wheel of swords, in which he was miraculously resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on 23 April 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra to become Christian as well and she joined St George in martyrdom.

George’s body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

The story of George and the Dragon is by no means necessarily impossible, since reptiles of various sorts were often called dragons in former times. Even today, the Komodo dragon is still so called.

Dragons of today:
Indonesian Komodo dragons, up to 10 feet in length and up to 365 lbs weight, poison-mouthed and potentially lethal, can be seen to this day

Ancient depictions of “fire-breathing” dragons have been misinterpreted. They were so depicted to indicate the poisonous breath and mouth of such animals. Since it is the case that the Komodo has precisely such a poisonous mouth, by virtue of the bacteria living therein, venom and its diet, the earlier depictions start to look remarkably scientific and not mythical at all. The deadliest bacteria in the Komodo dragon saliva appears to be a very deadly strain of Pasteurella multocida, from studies performed with lab mice.

Alternatively, the dragon might have been a crocodile or alligator which certainly can be found in North Africa near water.

This dragon was said to have made its nest at the spring providing water for a city in the Middle East. The citizens had to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, in order to collect water. To do so, and to distract the dragon, each day they had to offer the dragon at first a sheep, then a human sacrifice.

In their heathenism, they treated the dragon as an evil spirit that had to be placated. The victim was chosen by drawing lots. One ill-favoured day, the lot fell upon the daughter of the king who begged for her life but this partiality was rejected by the citizenry.

St George, who was in the country with his troops, scorned the heathen weakness of the citizenry and set out, warmly encouraged of course by the king, to rescue the princess. He did so, slaying the dragon in mortal combat. The grateful citizens abandoned heathenism and converted enthusiastically to the religion of St George, namely Christianity.

Ever after, the story was seen as the triumph of Christian truth over pagan superstition and the supernatural over corrupted nature. Inevitably, it became a great Christian allegory. However, the assumption that it must, therefore, be a fable and not true, is a false assumption. The Bible is full of allegory but that does not mean it is false.

A church built in Lydda during the reign of the Emperor Constantine I (306–337), was consecrated to St George and his cultus became one of the greatest in Christendom.

This church was destroyed in 1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the Western Crusaders who quickly came to embrace his cult. In 1191 the church was again destroyed by the Ayyubid Sultan, Sala’haddin (Saladin), during the 3rd Crusade.

By the fifth century the cult of George reached the Western Roman Empire and in 494, George was canonised as a saint by Pope Gelasius I. The cult was promoted much in England by King Alfred the Great.

An apparition of George is said to have heartened the Franks at the siege of Antioch, 1098, and made a similar appearance the following year at Jerusalem.

Chivalric military orders of St George Order were established in Aragon (1201), Genoa, Hungary, and by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor.

The Byzantine emperors had a great devotion to St George and the Palaeologue emperors created an order to restore the Labarum Guard of the Emperor Constantine, being the 50 knights who guarded the Labarum, a standard emblazoned with the Chi-Rho symbol that Constantine had seen in the sky before his victory on the Milvian Bridge. They dedicated this Order to St George giving it the symbol of the Cross and the Chi-Rho surrounded by the initials IHSV standing for "In Hoc Signo Vinces" - "In this Sign shalt thou conquer". The Order was bequeathed to the Farnese family by the Palaeologues in exile who became its Grand Master. Here is the Collar of the Order with the Chi-Rho and St George slaying the Dragon.

The collar of the Constantinian Order of St George

Today the Order's Grand Master is HRH the Infante Don Carlos of Spain.

King Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George. In England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St. George's Day a great feast day in the kingdom of England and, famously, his name was invoked by English kings in battle, not least King Henry V at Agincourt.

"St George for Merrie England"

His feast was raised to a Festum duplex at a church council in 1415, on the date that had become associated with his martyrdom, 23 April.

William Shakespeare was born and died on 23 April, St George's Day.

William Shakespeare, born and died on St George's Day

The Order of the Garter is still given in the name of “God, our Lady and St George” and features an image of St George slaying the Dragon. The hip decoration, at the bottom of the sash, is still called “the lesser George”.

The original Garter Star was always diamond-encrusted until, after the illegal seizure of the throne by the Protestant German Hanoverians, the diamonds were only retained for the sovereign and consort. The Garter blue of the sash was also darkened so as to distinguish it from the ancient colour which was associated with the Stuarts.

The diamond-encrusted Garter star

The Garter Star features, to this day, in a great many military symbols e.g. the rank stars of officers in the Household Cavalry and Division and in the Honourable Artillery Company. St George features in a great many other military symbols and traditions of the British armed forces and in British society generally.

St George’s Day is, indeed, a great day to be celebrated in the Kingdom of England and for Great Britain.

The Queen in the Garter procession as Sovereign of the Order.
The Garter is still conferred in the name of "God, our Lady and St George".


"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is set from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry:

'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'


...

St George for England!

Happy Feast of St George!

Today is the Feast of St George, Protector of the English Realm.

St George was born to a Christian family during the late third century. His father was from Cappadocia and served as an officer of the Roman army. His mother was from Lydda in Palestine.

St George followed his father into the army. It seems he was of equestrian, or knightly and thus noble, rank in Roman society and he appears to have pursued the cursus honorum beginning as a cavalryman or knight, a position reserved only for those of the knightly class. The better of the cavalry or knights went on to command as Decurion and later were selected as Tribunus militis or Military Tribune, an officer who was one of 5 staff officers in a legion.

The Roman Senate was selected from the ranks of the knights or equestrian class, especially those who had seen extensive military service in defence of Rome and its empire.

The Roman Senate

St George was stationed in Nicomedia as a member of the personal guard attached to Roman Emperor Diocletian and was promoted comes or Count, a title, meaning a “companion”, or sometimes a chamberlain, of the Emperor, an imperial appointment either civil or military (from this idea derived the Counts-Palatine or Paladins of Charlemagne).

Many titles have a military origin including those of imperator (later Emperor but originally the commander-in-chief of the army, lit., “giver of orders”), dux (later Duke or army commander), legatus (Legate – the commander of a legion, and of senatorial rank), tribunus (staff officer of equestrian class already mentioned), praefectus castrorum (Prefect of the Camp, the most veteran soldier in the Legion but non-equestrian), primus pilus (“first spear”, the most senior centurion and commander of the first cohort, non-equestrian but usually ennobled on retirement), pilus prior (first centurion of each cohort and often its commander), primi ordines (the 5 centurions of the first cohort), centurio (centurion – the commander of a “century” of 100 men) and optio (the second-in-command of a century but able to read and write, usually).

Julius Caesar, Roman general, senator and imperator

Each legion had 10 cohorts usually each of 6 centuries (sometimes divided into 3 maniples of 2 centuries each), plus 300 or more cavalry and assorted light infantry, light cavalry and auxiliaries (often of non-Roman origin) totalling about 6,600 men. A Legate is thus roughly equivalent to a brigadier-general, a Tribune to a captain, major or colonel, a pilus prior to a non-equestrian lieutenant colonel, risen from the ranks, and a centurion to a non-equestrian captain or major, risen from the ranks.

In 303 Diocletian issued an edict authorizing the systematic persecution of Christians across the Empire. George was ordered to participate in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticized the imperial decision. An enraged Diocletian ordered his torture and execution.

After various tortures, including laceration on a wheel of swords, in which he was miraculously resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on 23 April 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra to become Christian as well and she joined St George in martyrdom.

George’s body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

The story of George and the Dragon is by no means necessarily impossible, since reptiles of various sorts were often called dragons in former times. Even today, the Komodo dragon is still so called.

Dragons of today:
Indonesian Komodo dragons, up to 10 feet in length and up to 365 lbs weight, poison-mouthed and potentially lethal, can be seen to this day

Ancient depictions of “fire-breathing” dragons have been misinterpreted. They were so depicted to indicate the poisonous breath and mouth of such animals. Since it is the case that the Komodo has precisely such a poisonous mouth, by virtue of the bacteria living therein, venom and its diet, the earlier depictions start to look remarkably scientific and not mythical at all. The deadliest bacteria in the Komodo dragon saliva appears to be a very deadly strain of Pasteurella multocida, from studies performed with lab mice.

Alternatively, the dragon might have been a crocodile or alligator which certainly can be found in North Africa near water.

This dragon was said to have made its nest at the spring providing water for a city in the Middle East. The citizens had to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, in order to collect water. To do so, and to distract the dragon, each day they had to offer the dragon at first a sheep, then a human sacrifice.

In their heathenism, they treated the dragon as an evil spirit that had to be placated. The victim was chosen by drawing lots. One ill-favoured day, the lot fell upon the daughter of the king who begged for her life but this partiality was rejected by the citizenry.

St George, who was in the country with his troops, scorned the heathen weakness of the citizenry and set out, warmly encouraged of course by the king, to rescue the princess. He did so, slaying the dragon in mortal combat. The grateful citizens abandoned heathenism and converted enthusiastically to the religion of St George, namely Christianity.

Ever after, the story was seen as the triumph of Christian truth over pagan superstition and the supernatural over corrupted nature. Inevitably, it became a great Christian allegory. However, the assumption that it must, therefore, be a fable and not true, is a false assumption. The Bible is full of allegory but that does not mean it is false.

A church built in Lydda during the reign of the Emperor Constantine I (306–337), was consecrated to St George and his cultus became one of the greatest in Christendom.

This church was destroyed in 1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the Western Crusaders who quickly came to embrace his cult. In 1191 the church was again destroyed by the Ayyubid Sultan, Sala’haddin (Saladin), during the 3rd Crusade.

By the fifth century the cult of George reached the Western Roman Empire and in 494, George was canonised as a saint by Pope Gelasius I. The cult was promoted much in England by King Alfred the Great.

An apparition of George is said to have heartened the Franks at the siege of Antioch, 1098, and made a similar appearance the following year at Jerusalem.

Chivalric military orders of St George Order were established in Aragon (1201), Genoa, Hungary, and by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor.

The Byzantine emperors had a great devotion to St George and the Palaeologue emperors created an order to restore the Labarum Guard of the Emperor Constantine, being the 50 knights who guarded the Labarum, a standard emblazoned with the Chi-Rho symbol that Constantine had seen in the sky before his victory on the Milvian Bridge. They dedicated this Order to St George giving it the symbol of the Cross and the Chi-Rho surrounded by the initials IHSV standing for "In Hoc Signo Vinces" - "In this Sign shalt thou conquer". The Order was bequeathed to the Farnese family by the Palaeologues in exile who became its Grand Master. Here is the Collar of the Order with the Chi-Rho and St George slaying the Dragon.

The collar of the Constantinian Order of St George

Today the Order's Grand Master is HRH the Infante Don Carlos of Spain.

King Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George. In England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St. George's Day a great feast day in the kingdom of England and, famously, his name was invoked by English kings in battle, not least King Henry V at Agincourt.

"St George for Merrie England"

His feast was raised to a Festum duplex at a church council in 1415, on the date that had become associated with his martyrdom, 23 April.

William Shakespeare was born and died on 23 April, St George's Day.

William Shakespeare, born and died on St George's Day

The Order of the Garter is still given in the name of “God, our Lady and St George” and features an image of St George slaying the Dragon. The hip decoration, at the bottom of the sash, is still called “the lesser George”.

The original Garter Star was always diamond-encrusted until, after the illegal seizure of the throne by the Protestant German Hanoverians, the diamonds were only retained for the sovereign and consort. The Garter blue of the sash was also darkened so as to distinguish it from the ancient colour which was associated with the Stuarts.

The diamond-encrusted Garter star

The Garter Star features, to this day, in a great many military symbols e.g. the rank stars of officers in the Household Cavalry and Division and in the Honourable Artillery Company. St George features in a great many other military symbols and traditions of the British armed forces and in British society generally.

St George’s Day is, indeed, a great day to be celebrated in the Kingdom of England and for Great Britain.

The Queen in the Garter procession as Sovereign of the Order.
The Garter is still conferred in the name of "God, our Lady and St George".


"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is set from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry:

'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'


...

The Church Suffering: the Feast of All Souls

In Fest. omnibus animis

On the Feast of All Souls

"It is a holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead"

The prophet Job testified of the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the guarantee of a resurrection—He asks: If a man die, shall he live again?—He answers that he will await the Lord’s call to come forth from the grave.

The tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, like the Greek Catholic and Oriental Catholic Churches, is to dress in black for remembrance of the dead. This is right and proper. It is a sign of mourning and a reminder that the wearer is in mourning and a reminder to pray for the dead.

This is vitally important because not only is it necessary to pray for the dead but, concomitantly, God has made our nature such that we have a psychological need to mourn and sorrow for our dead loved ones. This is natural, right and good.

Our Lord Himself did the same. When told of the death of Lazarus, as Holy Writ shews, our Lord wept for the passing of His friend. It is, on the other hand, wholly unnatural to suppress all desire to mourn. Thus the modern idea that we should not vest in black for funerals, requiems and on solemn days of remembrance of the dead, is an entirely false one and is, moreover, psychologically contrary to our nature as God made it.

It is curious, is it not, that the very moderns who chatter so much about psychology and bereavement and bereavement counselling and all the rest of the jargon that they overflow with, should reject or omit such an obviously sound, traditional, workable and practical manner of mourning and coping with bereavement as that of wearing black as a sign to oneself and to others to pray and condole.

As these same people would say in another context: let them mourn; allow them space to mourn and weep for their lost loved ones! Well, then, we reply: do not press them to wear white and to pretend that all is well when, in fact, it is a time of deep sadness and sorrow.

Remember, too, the Beatitude that tells us: "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted".

So you modern liturgists: away with your whites and purples, your misplaced and ill-timed cheeriness and forced joviality. Spare us your inane chatter and impertinent invasion of our personal grieving.

Leave us to mourn, to wear black, and to pray for our loved ones who have died. Leave us space to grieve and sorrow as is only natural and as God intended. And do not think our ancestors such fools that they did not know what they were doing when they donned mourning clothes for the remembrance of their lost loved ones. In former times, when a close relative died, it was customary to mourn even for as long as 12 months, wearing black to remind all to pray for the deceased. This is profoundly Catholic and in keeping with human nature. One need not carry it as far as did Queen Victoria who wore black for the rest of her days, but nonetheless one should mourn for a decent space of time.

Nowadays death is regarded as a social faux pas, bad manners to speak of, something to be hidden and done behind closed doors. This is bizarre and inhuman. It merely stores up great anxieties and neuroses, or worse, for those who are thus not permitted space to mourn and to sorrow and to grieve. It also leads to attempts to hasten death so as to get it out of the way and out of our so easily offended gaze. This, in turn, can lead even to grotesque evils like euthanasia.

Why do priests, nuns and monks often wear black? Have you ever considered that? It is because they are making a public statement that they are dead to the world, and especially to the world of sin. They are publicly witnessing to the fact that they live a life of prayer for the living and the dead; and this is a "holy and wholesome thing".

"1 Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.

2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth like a shadow, and continueth not.

3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.

7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;

9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:

12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

14 If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands."

[Job 14]

"25 For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth.

26 And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see my God.

27 Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom."

[Job 19:20-27]

These are among some of the striking lessons that are sung upon the Feast of All Souls by chapters, convents and abbeys at the austerely beautiful and solemnly awesome Matins of the Dead.

Parts of the Office of the Dead were retained by Cranmer in the Anglican Funeral service. They have become familiar lines often heard in old films as the mourners and clergyman gather round the grave of the recently deceased, the latter beginning "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live..."

So beautiful were these lines from the prophet Job that Cranmer and the Protestant reformers could not suffer them to be excised from the new service books as so much else was.

Memorials of our Catholic past abound even today in modern, neo-pagan, secular Britain, and have not yet been effaced by the new generation of unclean heathens that rule us, oppress us and threaten our very way of life. In truth they are simply too ignorant of their own history. So much so that they are unaware of these continuing memorials and so have not yet formed the idea of destroying them as they have so much else of our Christian past and identity - that which gave us all the things that we enjoy today.

One example of such a persisting remnant of our Catholic past is All Souls College, Oxford (pictured below).

Strictly, its name should have changed because the Protestant Reformers did not believe in praying for the dead because they did not believe in Purgatory despite Scripture's clear references to such a middle state of souls after death and to the even clearer mandate that it is a "holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead" (2 Machab 12:46).

The naturally conservative and latently Catholic spirit of the English people caused them to adopt the Protestant Reform only grudgingly in an attenuated way - there over 150 uprisings against the new religion and the new service books. This is not surprising given that England had been, in the Middle Ages, regarded as one of the most Catholic countries in Europe. The result was the keeping of a great many ancient memorials of the Catholic past. One such was All Souls, Oxford.

All Souls, Langham Place, next to the BBC, is another. Ironically, it is a very Evangelical Protestant Church whose members would not believe in Purgatory and so would not pray for the souls of the dead. They are good folk but ironically they do not know that the name of their own church signifies the tradition of praying for the dead.

All Souls College, Oxford

De Profundis (Psalm 131)

Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord - Lord hear my voice! Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If Thou, O Lord, shalt mark our iniquities, O Lord, who can abide it? For with Thee there is mercy, and by reason of Thy law I have waited for Thee, O Lord.

My soul hath hoped in the Lord. From morning watch even unto night, let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

V. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

R. And let perpetual light shine upon them.

V. Let us pray.

O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of Thy departed servants the full remission of all their sins, that through our pious supplications they may obtain that pardon which they have always desired. Thou who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

...

The Church Triumphant: the Eve of All Saints - the real Hallowe'en

In vigil. fest. omnibus Sanctis

The Eve of All Hallows

(Hallowe'en)

After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb"

Forget "trick or treat"!

This the real meaning of All Hallow's Eve or Hallowe'en. Hallows is an old English word meaning "saints". Hence we speak of something being "hallowed" i.e. made holy.

This tableau is a powerful representation of the Church militant, here on earth, and the Church triumphant, in heaven.

On earth we see the Pope, clergy and religious on the left and the Emperor, nobility and people on the right.

Above them we see the Holy Trinity, with our Lady and the martyrs on the left and St Joseph and the other saints on the right, above them both are the holy angels, all adoring the Trinity.

It demonstrates, too, the essentially familiar and Trinitarian heart of the Church: the Holy Family is a reflection of the Holy Trinity and the charity that must obtain within a family is a reflection of the charity that obtains within the Holy Family and the Holy Trinity and is the foundation of heaven.

The Church, then, is a society founded upon the family and upon familiar principles which, in turn, are Trinitarian and incarnational principles, incarnating the love of God for men and the filial duty of men, in turn, to love and adore God the Father of all.

This the saints have done and do now to perfection, setting an example for us all to imitate.

All ye holy apostles, saints and martyrs, pray for us!

...

Our Lady of Victory: when the Rosary beat the Turks at Lepanto

On 7 October 1571, Don John of Austria, son of the Emperor Charles V, commanding the navies of the Pope and the Emperor, together with the navies of Spain and Venice, defeated a much larger Turkish navy off the coast of Greece at a place now called Naupactos.

To the men of his day this place was called by its Roman name:

Lepanto

How did this extraordinary victory come about?

The answer is simple enough. it was obtained - yet again - by the most powerful weapon known to men: the holy Dominican Rosary chaplet of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Prior to this, one of the greatest naval battles of Roman Christendom, the Pope, St Pius V, himself a Dominican friar, ordered the praying of the Holy Rosary throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, just as was later to be done before the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

As a result the feast of our Lady of Victory (later our Lady of the Rosary) was instituted by the popes for an everlasting memory.

Let us hear what Abbot Prosper Gueranger OSB of Solesmes says of that great battle and feast in his great work, The Liturgical Year (the book read to St Therese of Lisieux when she was a child):

"Soliman II, the greatest of the Sultans, taking advantage of the confusion caused in the West by Luther, had filled the 16th century with terror by his exploits. He left to his son, Selim II, the prospect of being able at length to carry out the ambition of his race: to subjugate Rome and Vienna, the Pope and the Emperor, to the power of the crescent.

The Turkish fleet had already mastered the greater part of the Mediterannean, and was threatening Italy, when, on 7 October 1571, it came into action, in the Gulf of Lepanto, against the pontifical galleys supported by the fleets of Spain and Venice.

It was Sunday; throughout the world the confraternities of the Rosary were engaged in their work of intercession. Supernaturally enlightened, St Pius V watched from the Vatican the battle undertaken by the leader he had chosen, Don John of Austria, against the 300 vessels of Islam.

Don John of Austria

The illustrious Pontiff, whose life's work was now completed, did not survive to celebrate the anniversary of the triumph; but he perpetuated the memory of it by an annual commemoration of our Lady of Victory.

His successor, Gregory XIII, altered the title to our Lady of the Rosary, and appointed the first Sunday of October for the new feast [now celebrated on 7 October, the actual day of the battle - ed], authorising its celebration in those churches which possessed an altar under that invocation.

A century and a half later, this limited concession was made general. As [now Venerable]Innocent XI, in memory of the deliverance of Vienna by King Jan Sobieski, had extended the feast of the most Holy Name of Mary to the whole Church, so, in 1716, Clement XI inscribed the feast of the Rosary on the universal calendar, in gratitude for the victory gained by Prince Eugene of Savoy [commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces] at Peterwardein, on 5 August, under the auspices of our Lady of the snow. This victory was followed by the raising of the siege of Corfu, and completed a year later by the taking of Belgrade."

After Vienna, Peterwardein and Belgrade, the Muslim Turks were finally routed and never again troubled Roman Christendom.

Such was - and is - the extraordinary power of the Holy Rosary of St Dominic.

Beads of Paternosters and Aves have been said from very early times and were commonly said by the knights and sergeants of the Military religious Orders when in battle and on campaign, when they could not say their Office.

St Dominic formalised the current Dominican Rosary prior to the Battle of Muret in 1213 (that battle was again won on 12 September - the day after the mysterious 9/11) when he prayed for Count Simon de Montfort and his 700 knights as they sallied forth against a huge army of 50,000 Albigensians - rather like Theoden of Rohan against the massive army of Saruman and Isengard in The Lord of the Rings.

Like Theoden, de Montfort and his knights routed the Albigensians by charging straight into their midst. They gained the Albigensian headquarters and when their leader, the heretic King Peter of Aragon, was slain, the Albigensians fled.

Nevertheless, Count Simon wept over the corpse of King Peter whom he had known and admired as a soldier and whom he had hoped could be spared, powerful heretic and enemy though he was.

Thus the day was won and the tiny Catholic army triumphed over the huge heretic army. This, again, was another great victory obtained by the all-powerful Rosary of our Lady.

Small wonder, then, that our Lady has so often appeared and asked her children to pray the Holy Rosary for victory and peace, as she did to St Bernarde of Lourdes (St Bernadette) and later to the little shepherds at Fatima in 1917 during the Great War.

When we face fearful odds in the cause of right we must turn to our Lady and to her powerful weapon - the sword of the spirit - the chaplet of the Holy Rosary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
St Dominic, pray for us!
St Pius V, pray for us!
Ven Innocent XI, pray for us!

...

Feast of our Lady of Walsingham

Today is the Feast of our Lady of Walsingham.

In 1061, our Lady appeared to the Lady Richeldis de Faverches, the widow of the Lord of the Manor of Walsingham Parva ("Little Walsingham").

In this vision she was taken by Mary to be shown the Holy House in Nazareth where the Archangel St Gabriel had announced to her that she would be the mother of the Saviour and thus the Mother of God. The real Holy House itself was later taken from Nazareth to Italy, coming to rest eventually where it now is in Loreto.

Mary asked the Lady Richeldis to build an exact replica of the Holy House in Walsingham. The vision was repeated three times and the materials given by Richeldis were finally constructed miraculously one night into the replica Holy House while she kept a vigil of prayer. The shrine was later passed down to her son, Geoffrey de Faverches. The shrine came to be called "England's Nazareth".

Geoffrey left instructions for the building of a Priory in Walsingham. The Priory passed into the care of Augustinian Canons sometime between 1146 and 1174.

The Shrine grew enormously due to receiving visits and support from Kings Henry III, Edward II, Edward III, Henry IV, Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII.

It became one of the 4 great shrines of Latin Christendom with Rome, Santiago de Compostella and Monte Gargano in Italy (where the Archangel St Michael had appeared in a cave).

Throughout the Middle Ages it was England's greatest national shrine and great men like St Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam visited it and prayed.

King Henry VIII came there and followed the custom of removing shoes at the "Slipper chapel" (now the Roman Catholic shrine) and walking the mile into Little Walsingham, barefoot in the snow, to the Augustinian Priory that stood over the shrine of the replica Holy House of Nazareth built by the Lady Richeldis.

However, Henry went to the bad, seduced by the Enemy of human nature, Satan, and by the flesh, worldly wealth and the spirit of power which hates the sublime virtue of obedience.

After the Pope would not agree to his putting away Katherine of Aragon, his true Queen, he raged and fumed and in his lust-filled arrogance repudiated the Pope and instigated the English Protestant Reformation. He dismantled the monasteries of England which owned over 1/3rd of all land and were, among other things a huge private, religious welfare system for the poor, sick and elderly.

The system of social welfare built on the religious houses was a true "private finance intitiative" of the best sort but on a grand scale and built upon charity and love rather than self-interest and greed.

Indeed, it shews that private wealth can be used for public good without even the slightest hint of Socialism or Communism, those materialistic counterfeits of true love and charity. The essential ingredient is always religion, charity and love. These are things which the State cannot compel. They must come from the heart and from the Grace of God. Medieval men gave willingly and generously to the monasteries so that a huge welfare network existed all over the country based not upon tight-fisted, rule-obsessed, faceless, heartless bureaucracy but upon the sacrifice of Christians and of devout religious and upon the love of God and of our neighbour, just as the Gospel teaches us.

This was all smashed by the odious Henry.

He raided this enormous patrimony of the poor and gave it to himself and his friends who enriched themselves to a degree which, at that time, was beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.

So began the huge disparity between rich and poor in England and the establishment of a wide number of immensely rich and recently ennobled families, like the Russell Earls of Bedford and many others, whose descendants became the great Whigs and so-called "Liberals" of England. Whenever their position of monumental wealth and privilege was threatened, they clandestinely fomented anti-Catholic and "No Popery" riots to distract the people from the real causes for their grinding poverty and oppression.

These same Whigs and "Liberals" conspired against their true king and secured the exile of the Catholic Stuarts. They were responsible for the Penal Laws against Catholics, one of the most disgracefully oppressive codes ever introduced into law in any country of Europe. Their constant, and ill-founded, fear was that a Catholic government in England might re-take their ill-gotten wealth from them and restore it to the monasteries and the poor from whom these Whigs and "Liberals" had first stolen it. Actually, as Catholic Queen Mary and Catholic King James II had made clear, that was not going to happen becuase it was, by then, virtually impossible to restore everything. It is easy to destroy but to build is always more difficult, time-consuming and painstaking.

The only thing these supposed "Liberals" were liberal with was the money of the poor which they stole! Liberality for them meant grinding and crushing the poor so that they, the "Liberals", could pamper themselves!

They wanted "freedom" from the Pope so that they did not have to obey the laws of the Church forbidding them from killing, grinding, robbing and oppressing the poor. In return, they demanded the most slavish obedience from the poor and stole every ounce of freedom from them.

Hypocrites! Blind guides! Pharisees! Whited sepulchres! How can you be saved! So might our Lord have addressed these most hypocritical of "Christians".

Throughout this period, as William Cobbett, himself a Protestant author and Member of Parliament, shews in his book The History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, the people of England were impoverished to a degree unheard ever before or since. As he further shews, the Parliamentary Speenhamland reports evidence the fact that the poor were, in some parts of late 18th century England, living on nothing but cold water and potatoes!

William Cobbett MP, Farnham-born farmer, Anglican defender of the poor and of Catholic England

He contrasts this with the far greater wealth and comfort which their ancestors had enjoyed in medieval times under the Catholic monarchs, providing statistical evidence to prove the same.

Henry VIII's Commissioners went to Walsingham and its Priory and, as with all the other monasteries and religious houses, despoiled them, robbed and stole from them and threw the religious out, leaving the poor to starve.

The booty was, as ever, to go to the rich to make them richer at the expense of the poor. It was an unheard of thing in the whole of Christendom: shameless and diabolical to a simply incredible degree.

This was truly the "revolt of the rich" as Chesterton called it. It was as if the rich of today were to raid the Department of Work and Pensions and several other departments of state and keep all the money for themselves. This was made all the worse because they were robbing, in acts of unprecedented blasphemy, holy sanctuaries dedicated to God.

The robbing of the great shrine of Walsingham signified this total calamity for the people of England and Ireland.

This calamity became so acute that, by the end of the 18th century, the people were in a state of terror, misery or drunken stupefaction (to "drown their sorrows") and there were over 200 capital offences readily enforced by anti-Catholic tyrants like Lord Chancellor Eldon but mitigated by men of humanity like Lord Chancellor Mansfield. One might be transported to Australia merely for stealing 6d to feed one's starving family and in Ireland things were even worse. However, juries began to devalue stolen goods so that they fell below the capital offence value and good judges, like Mansfield, winked at this.

William Murray, the 1st Earl of Mansfield had been raised a Jacobite, coming as he did from the famous Scottish Jacobite family of Murray, the men who provided Bonnie Prince Charlie with a whole brigade of men, the Athollmen under Lord George Murray and the Jacobite Duke of Atholl. After the failure of the Jacobite uprising, he was later associated with the Tories. He practically codified the English law of his time and famously founded English mercantile law using his wide knowledge of foreign and Roman law. He famously gave judgment in Somersett's case which declared slavery illegal in England.

Mansfield's house was burnt down by the anti-Catholic mob in the Gordon riots, egged on by the same anti-Catholic Whigs who always did so. But the mob went too far, as mobs often do. A priceless collection of Law Reports with Mansfield's detailed marginal notes was burned by the mob. Mansfield was attacked because a decision of his had prevented a Catholic priest from being unfairly persecuted.

Lord George Gordon, from the once Catholic Scots family of the Dukes of Huntly, who had fomented the riots, escaped but later came back to face trial where he was given only a jail sentence. In prison he abandoned Protestant Christianity and became a Jew.

John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon was of opposite character to Mansfield and much lampooned by Charles Dickens. No legislator — his one aim in politics was to keep in office, and maintain things as he found them, almost the only laws he helped to pass were laws for popular coercion. For nearly forty years he fought against every improvement in law or in the Constitution, calling God to witness, on the smallest proposal of reform, that he foresaw from it the downfall of his country. Without any political principles, properly so called, and without interest in or knowledge of foreign affairs, he maintained himself and his party in power for an unprecedented period in virtue of his two great political properties of zeal against every species of reform, and zeal against Roman Catholics. As a judge he was a by-word for delay and injustice. He is fittingly portrayed in Dicken's Bleak House in which the never-ending case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce ends with judgment having been so long delayed by Eldon that the estate is all eaten up by lawyers' fees with nothing left for the children of the estate.

Our Lady had her revenge, however, and, in a wonderful reversal, the present John Scott, 5th Earl of Eldon, is a convert to Roman Catholicism!

The calamity of England had, however, been further secured by the so-called "Glorious Revolution" of 1688/9 of the Protestant Whigs and "Liberals" when they finally excluded the Catholic king, James II and VII, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he had sought to relieve the sufferings of the people by easing the Penal Laws.

The "Revolution" had been achieved by the treachery of inviting the Dutch Stadhouder, Prince William of Orange, to invade. The so-called Bill of Rights which was said to secure the freedoms and rights of the English people only did so for the rich middle and upper classes. The poor were as destitute as ever. It was as hollow a piece of shameless hypocrisy as ever was devised by men of politics since it spoke of noble things whilst they were simultaneously being savagely denied to all but the rich and powerful. It was really designed to allow the rich Whigs and their allies to bolster their power against the King and the State so that they could go on enjoying their own personal wealth and freedoms and not be troubled by laws giving any rights to the poor and the people such as previous kings, like James II, had tried to obtain.

Such was the world of vile corruption, villainy, sin and oppression that was ushered in by the Protestant Reformation, the smashing of the monasteries, the murder of priests and religious and the sack and pillage of the great shrine of our Lady of Walsingham.

But our Lady again had her just revenge and it was a representative of that same oppressive Church of England, now a virtual new creation following the Oxford Movement of the 19th century, one Fr Alfred Hope Patton, who, in the 1920s, restored the shrine creating a new statue based upon the old medieval seal of the old Priory.

In fact, the Catholic Church had acquired the old "Slipper chapel" and had re-established the shrine in 1897 but the Church of England itself, through Fr Hope Patton, re-built a replica of the Holy House and housed an Anglican shrine around it.

Now both Catholic and Anglican pilgrims visit the shrine in large numbers throughout the year.

The old seal of the former Priory of Walsingham

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

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