The papal monarchy is certainly one of the most crafty, demoralizing, and oppressive despotisms that has ever disgraced the name of government. Its ambition is insatiable, its duplicity inscrutible, and its policy and measures are disgraceful and unprincipled. The popes have converted the courteous indulgence of friendship into inviolable rights, and from the feeblest concession have manufactured the most exorbitant claim. Pretending to be spiritual advisers, they became temporal despots. Soon as they had acquired the right of owning a farm, they asserted the fight of owning a kingdom; and when the right was conceded of owning a single kingdom, they claimed the right of owning all the kingdoms of the earth. A church, a mission-house, an acre of land they construed into an implication that they had a right to all power, temporal or spiritual, for which their capacious maw could crave. They first founded mission-houses in different parts of the world; next they claimed absolute jurisdiction over them. Disputes respecting property arising between the citizens of Rome and these foreign mission-houses of the church, the popes claimed the exclusive right to arbitrate between them. The right to arbitrate gave them the power to judge, and the opportunity of adjusting disputes according to their advantage. As ecclesiastical litigation conduced to the extension of their authority, pontiffs were not always too honorable to discourage the causes which favored their mediatorial interposition. From the right to arbitrate between churches, they next claimed the right to arbitrate between subjects, then between cities, then between nobles, and then between monarchs. As their mediation in church or state affairs enabled them to adjust disputes according to their policy, they insidiously labored to multiply the causes which favored their friendly intervention.
By a succession of forgeries, usurpations, and skilful manoeuvres the papal government advanced, in the progress of events, from an obscure origin to supreme secular and spiritual jurisdiction. By gradual steps the popes acquired the right to decide on ecclesiastical and matrimonial questions; to dispose of church dignities and benefices; to protect their temporal acquisitions from alienation by the interdiction of the marriage of the clergy; to abridge the investiture of bishoprics by the princes; to reduce the clergy to absolute dependence on their favor by dissolving all bonds of interest which subsisted between the bishops and the princes; to convene at option synods and councils, and to exercise the prerogative of ratifying their decrees; to command the concession of their infallibility; to enforce confessors on princes and statesmen; to introduce the inquisition into kingdoms; and to regulate and superintend schools and colleges. The attainment of these objects was the work of centuries. Conceiving a desire in one age, they plotted for its accomplishment through the events and discords of succeeding ages; and when machinations had matured their plan, they consummated their wishes by usurpation. The pretensions to the alleged donation of Pepin, of Charlemagne, of Matilda, and of the Gothic princes, were not asserted until long after the death of the pretended donors, nor until art and intrigue had prepared the way for it. The alleged grant of Constantine was first announced in 765 by Pope Adrian I., in an epistle to Charlemagne. The claim to the estates of Matilda was first made by Pope Paschal, on the ground that they were granted to the Holy See as a fief; and next by pope Innocent II., on the ground that they had been granted to it as lord paramount. The participation of Pope Leo III. in the Consular government of Rome, in a paternal capacity, was the first instance of a pope's exercising temporal authority. The anointing of Pepin by Pope Adrian I., in imitation of the example of Samuel, was the first semblance of the pope's usurpation of the prerogatives of that official in acknowledging the right of kings. The victory of Nicholas I, over the Emperor Lothair, was the first papal triumph over the secular authority. The coronation of Charles the Bold, in 875, by Pope John VIII., was the first act of the papal monarch in disposing of crowns. The conquests of Robert Guiscard, instigated by promises of the popes, furnished the first ground of their feudal claims. The fear of the terrible consequences of their anathemas and interdictions, the ill regulated constitution of the European States, the imperfection of domestic and international law, and the efficient operation of the papal machinery, enabled them to render kingdom after kingdom tributary to the Holy See. England, from the period of the introduction of the Catholic church into her realm; Belgaria and Aragon, from the eleventh century; Poland and Hungary from the thirteenth century; and the kingdom of the two Sicilies, from 1265, had been reduced to dependency on the sacerdotal monarchy; and had the crusades been successful, favored by the confusion which it had universally' produced with regard to the rights of citizens and the titles of property, it would have, under the pretext of a zeal to wrest the sepulchre of Christ from the possession of the Infidels, reduced the world to a state of vassalage. The success of the political measures and intrigues of the Holy See havings at the time of Gregory VII., raised it to a high degree of power and importance, he attempted to convert it into a theocratical government, with the pope for its head, the priests for its officials, the people for its subjects, and the world for its dominion. Under Innocent III, elected in 1195, it acquired almost unlimited spiritual and temporal authority. Under Sixtus V., in 1585, it contemplated the subjugation of Russia and Egypt, but the death of Bathore, Duke of Tuscany, frustrated the design. But under Pope Clement XII., in 1652, its power began to decline. He was obliged to cede Naples to Germany, the quarters of the pope's embassadors in Venice to the Venitian government, and the right of investiture in Savoy to the secular authority. Pope Pius VI., elected in 1775, beheld the church property in France confiscated, and the religious orders suppressed; in Naples the abolition of the customary tribute of a horse; in Germany the interdiction of the nunciature; in Italy the dismemberment of Romagna, Bologna and Ferrara; and finally, the French troops entering Rome and declaring it a republic.
It is evident from the facts that have been adduced, that the Catholic church, or the papal monarchy, designates an institution which has politics for its principles, monarchy for its object, and religion for its garb. It is not only political in its nature and design, but it is a political despotism, insulting in its pretensions to the common sense of mankind, and dangerous in its principles to the rights of independent governments. When we consider the monarchial principles with which it is constituted; its blasphemous arrogation of the attributes and prerogatives of the deity; its presumptuous claim to supreme jurisdiction over all other governments; the base forgeries which it has committed in the support of its arbitrary pretensions; its impious scoff at secular promises, contracts, laws, oaths and constitutions; its atrocious sanctions of prevarication, of evasion, and of mental reservation; its disgraceful system of espionage; its system of finance, by which it wrings from beggars their pittance, from the laborer the reward of his toil, from the dying the inheritance of heirs; that it may pile the wealth of the world in secret coffers, to be lavished on bribery, on corruption, on political intermeddling, on fomenting sedition and conspiracies, and ultimately, through the means of their disorganizing agencies, for the subjugation of all governments under its absolute authority. When we behold the blood-stained sword which it has drawn in the support of its frauds and usurpations; the frequent convulsions with which its unprincipled ambition has shaken the world; its triumphs over science, freedom and human right; the rapine, devastated fields, and burning cities which has marked the progress of its career; or when we turn our eyes to its late condition in Italy, and see, in the nineteenth century, under its authority, the inquisition at its bloody work; the study of philosophy banished from universities; no book allowed to be published, or imported, except such as meet the approval of bigoted censors; the government sustained only by suppressing insurrection; the prisons crowded with heretics; political offenders cruelly put to death; the nation struggling for freedom, but bound in the fetters of despotism—good heavens! what a scourge is it, and has it been to mankind. Bigotry and superstition may chaunt its victories; but a land once prosperous, now choked up and oppressed with the ruins of its former greatness; fields once fertile now turned into barren wastes; a people once the most valiant, polished and civilized, now the most debased, rude and imbecile—with ancestors that governed the world, now not able to govern themselves; a commonwealth of kings, now a commonwealth of slaves; where for liberty Cicero plead, Brutus stabbed and Cato died, now a pope curses, an inquisition murders, and prisons reverberate with the groans of patriots and freemen. These, oh patriots! are the eternal monuments that commemorate the progress and achievements of the papal monarchy. The usurper of all rights, the sanctifier of all wrongs, the shrine of bigotry, the model of despotism: the church now stands reaffirming the crimes and errors of centuries, and is thirsting for an opportunity of repeating its past horrible history. Such is the papal monarchy; such is the Catholic church; such is the political institution which she claims the divine authority to obtrude, by any means, on the world; and such are the demoralizing, seditious and treasonable principles which she carries in her bosom, scatters in her pathway, and is laboring to implant in the American republic, in order that she may overthrow its structure, that monarchy may supplant its liberal principles, despotic decrees its legislative enactments, arbitrary appointments its popular elections, aristocracy its equality, slavery its freedom, usurpation its guarantees of natural rights, and bigotry, violence, and superstition its tolerance, order and science.
CHAPTER XII. PAPAL POLITICAL INTRIGUES IN ENGLAND
Papal Political Machinery—Papal Political Intrigues in
England, under the Reigns of Henry II—of King John—of
Henry VII—of Charles I—of Charles II—of James II—of
William and Mary.
The design of ruling nations was clearly indicated by the principles upon which the monastic orders were founded. Regarding supremacy to the pope as the main substance of Christianity, and obedience to his will as necessary to salvation, their doctrines harmonized with his claim to supreme temporal and spiritual power; and their organization, based strictly on monarchial principles, skilfully adapted to secure unity and concentration of action, formed, together with the military knights, a political machinery in the advancement of the papal interests, which was capable of intimidating the boldest antagonist, and of shaking the power of the strongest government. With the knowledge of this fact we may perceive the origin of some of those mysterious seditions and rebellions which have arisen apparently from trifling causes, and which, from insignificant beginnings have gained such strength and dimensions as to dismay the valor of disciplined arms, and distract every section of the land, and every department of the government. We may also perceive from the same fact, why the struggle of civil and religious liberty has been such a long, bloody, and interminable conflict. That rational beings should trample upon their rights, surrender up their personal sovereignty, kneel in adoration at the feet of a despot, deliberately rivet on their own limbs the irons of slavery, crucify their champions, and deify their enemies, is certainly strange; and without the supposition of the intervention of some secret power by which reason was unseated in such instances, it is not conceivable. But that the pope, by means of his political machinery, is capable of producing identical extraordinary effects, is ft fact supported by the irrefragable testimony of history; and that he has never scrupled to exercise his terrible power whenever his ambitious projects required it, un-awed by the magnitude of the public calamity which it threatened to entail, is a fact written with the blood and tears of nations. The secrecy, extent, and irresistible energy of his power, have sometimes led his unsuspecting subjects to regard him as a magician; and sometimes they have been the cause of his arraignment before councils on the charge of practising magic, and of having dealings with the devil. But although the effects which he produced were as malignant and surprising as those which have been ascribed to the supernatural power of the arch-fiend, yet the only magic he ever had the necessity of using was his political machinery; through which he could charm like the poisonous adder; mislead like the fabled sirens; pervert the public judgment; calm or distract a nation; excite it to rebel against its best governor, or to enthrone in power its bitterest foe.
From the hour when first the Catholic church planted her foot on the soil of England until the present moment, her emissaries have labored as far as practicable, by every available means, under every garb, in all departments of the government, and at all periods of its history, to subject the nation to the despotism of Rome. For a long period the priests were the instructors of her princes, the advisers of her kings, and under the semblance of spiritual guides, the spies on their thoughts and actions.
Passing by the numerous instances of papal political intrigue in the history of England, we will glance at a few of those which have taken place since the coronation of Henry II., in 1154. The most accomplished prince of his time, and celebrated for the acuteness of his judgment and the equitableness of his decisions, he received at the hands of his regal cotemporaries the distinguished honor of being chosen by them as their arbiter, to settle their matters of dispute. He received also, from the policy or generosity of Pope Adrian IV., a gift of the kingdom of Ireland. The following extract from Adrian's bull on that occasion will explain the nature and object of the donation: "No one doubts, and you know the fact yourself, that Ireland, and all the isles that have received the Christian faith belong to the church of Rome. And you have signified to us that you wish to enter this island, in order to subject the people to the laws, and extirpate their vices; to make them pay to St. Peter a penny a year for each house, and preserve in all things the rights of the church; which we grant to you with pleasure for the increase of the Christian religion."—(Labb. 13, 14, 15). At the dictation of the pope, the Irish clergy met at Waterford and took the oath of allegiance to Henry and his successors. Thus by a pretended prerogative of popery, "Ireland was blotted from the map, and consigned to the loss of freedom, without a tribunal and without a crime."—(McGeoghegan, 1: 440). But notwithstanding the munificent bounty of the pope, yet the growing weight of the ecclesiastical establishments—so oppressive to the industry and enterprise of the people—and the continual and insidious encroachments of the clergy on the prerogatives of the crown, determined Henry, under the administration of Pope Alexander III., to summon a council of nobles and clergy at Clarendon, to frame such a constitution as would be adequate for the protection of the prerogatives of the crown and the rights of the subjects. The principles of this constitution, like seeds sown among thorns and brambles, were in danger of being oppressed in their early growth by a heavy encumbrance of Catholic ignorance and superstition; and not until intelligence and public spirit had removed the obstruction did they show their native benificent vigor. Under the stormy reign of Henry II. they were checked, thwarted, and at times almost extirpated; but under that of King John they produced the "Magna Charta," under that of Charles II. the "Habeas Corpus," and under those of succeeding princes the various liberal acts which constitute English liberty.
Although this liberal and judicious constitution had received the sanction of the Council of Clarendon, yet it was violently opposed by Thomas-a-Becket, the oracle of the pope, and the chief engineer of his political machinery in England. Denouncing it as a profane infraction of the privileges and immunities of the church, he proceeded to excommunicate all persons who had acquired, or should acquire ecclesiastical property under the authority of its provisions. In savage zeal in behalf of the pope, he had violated his oath of allegiance to the king; and thus imprudently furnished his antagonists with legal authority to retaliate the mischief of revenge by the confiscation of all his property. Chagrined at the triumph of his foes, and exasperated at the loss of his temporal possessions, he sought to solace his wounded pride, and vent the ebullitions of his despair and rage in excommunicating the principal officers of the crown, and all who should presume to violate the church prerogatives. But duly impressed with the intrinsic impotence of his own curses, and that neither their sanctity nor potency could protect his insolent tongue from punishment even while uttering them, he fled to France, that he might exercise with impunity his sacred functions in cursing his foes. By the mandates of his anathema the papal machinery was, of course, set in violent operation to destroy the king for the benefit of the church, and to invoke in its cause the insidious but formidable aid of scandal, vituperation and defamation. The brilliant qualities of Henry were unfortunately overshaded with the dark vice of un-chastity. As greater rakes are often horrified at the peccadillos of lesser ones, so in this case, the more profligate clergy became exceedingly exasperated upon discovering in the conduct of Henry the practice of their own irregularities, modified by less grossness and more refinement. Not possessing that charity which covereth a multitude of sins, but that religion which magnifies, distorts and publishes them, they soon managed to startle the sobriety of every hamlet with whispers of the king's incredible depravity. To secure the visitation of divine justice on the head of Henry, they profaned the sanctity of his domestic circle by the dissemination of treacherous and extravagant inventions, until the queen was frenzied with jealousy, and Geoffry and Richard, two sons of Henry, were incited to rebellion. The prudence and martial abilities of the king enabled him, however, soon to suppress these afflictive and unnatural seditions. But the papal machinery, more tremendous and pestiferious than the fabled monsters of antiquity, with their poisonous breath, their hundred heads and thousand hands, was still in action in every part of the empire. Hence Henry's son Louis, whom he had crowned as his successor, was induced to demand of him the surrender of the diadem. In anticipation of this demand papal intrigue had secured the support of France and Scotland in its favor; and consequently England was suddenly involved in the horrors of a civil and a foreign war. But the coolness and extraordinary military genius of Henry was adequate to the terrible emergency. After a desperate contest he repelled the invaders, and restored order to his kingdom. But the moral effluvia which was produced by the action of the papal political machinery, continued still to generate those noxious vapors which had so frequently overclouded the atmosphere of England, and broke in storms of pestilence, blood and death. The peace of his kingdom was consequently again disturbed by the discovery of a conspiracy, at the head of which was Richard, Henry's third son, and complicated with which was John, his favorite and youngest son. Upon the disclosure of this mortifying fact, the king pronounced a curse upon his rebellious children, which was more properly merited by the pope and the father confessors of the princes, to whom the first conception of their treason was known; and if they did not originate, might have blasted it in its bud. But Henry was unconsciously dealing with an invisible monster, that in the garb of a holy father was commanding his homage and reverence, while it was profaning his domestic hearth, exciting his subjects to sedition, his children to rebellion, and at the same time inducing him to attribute to his family and subjects the dreadful calamities that had been conjured by the machinations of the monster himself. Had Henry had the sagacity to penetrate the secrets of the Holy See, and had he been able, in defiance of a papal alliance with the united crowned heads of Christendom, to have annulled the authority of the pope in his realm, and broken up the machinery of his treasonable machinations, how effectually might he have suppressed the rebellion of his sons, and the disorders of his kingdom; and what a blessing he would have been to England and to mankind. Freedom will, however, ever be grateful to the king, who laid the foundation of England's liberty. The cost at which he purchased this invaluable legacy for posterity was as tremendous as are the obligations of gratitude which it imposes. His family converted into a nest of venomous reptiles; his sons, around whom his fondest hopes had clustered, transformed into treacherous foes; his laborious efforts to elevate the importance and improve the condition of his subjects, converted into sources of the deepest of misfortunes; these were the papal demands, outweighing the wealth of worlds, which were imposed on him for having served the cause of justice, of humanity, and of his country; and under the rigorous exactions of these demands, three days after the disclosure of the last conspiracy of his sons, he sunk into an unconsecrated grave, ruined and broken hearted.