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CONTENTS.-No. VI.

Dr. Lange's Life of the Lord Jesus Christ-Dr. Ellicott's

Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ

Andrews's Life of our Lord upon the Earth Dr.

Ebrard's Gospel History -Wieseler's Chronological Synopsis
of the Four Gospels-P. Gratry's Commentaire sur l'Evangile
selon S. Matthieu - Mgr. Landriot's La Femme Forte-
Luard's Annales Monastici - Robertson's Lectures on Sub-
jects of Modern History and Biography - Canon Oakeley's
Lecture on the Catholic Religion and National Morality—
Sanctity in Home Life - Extracts from the Fathers, &c.-
Little Flowers of S. Francis of Assisi S. Clare, S. Colette, and
the Poor Clares-Gilla Hugh-De Rossi's Imagines Selectæ
Deiparæ Virginis-Mgr. Manning's Convocation and Crown in
Council-History of England for Family Use, &c.-Canon
Griffin's Catechetical Reading Book - Explanation of the
Sacrifice of the Mass-Moon's Dean's English-The Month.

DUBLIN REVIEW.

JULY, 1864.

ART. I. THE LATE JUDGMENT OF THE

PRIVY

COUNCIL.

A Speech delivered before the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council, in the cause of Wilson v. Fendall, an Appeal from the Arches Court of Canterbury. By HENRY B. WILSON, B.D., Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts, Appellant. London: Longman.

1863.

BOUT the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Holy See was undergoing one of those sharp persecutions which only vary the monotony of its sufferings, and when the powers of this world seemed to care as little as they care now for the agonies of the great victim, the Emperor of Germany, then the foremost of the evil gang, laid his hands heavily upon the Vicar of Christ: cardinals were insulted, bishops were imprisoned, and the property of the Church was laid waste. In the depths of his misery, Gregory IX. applied to the bishops, abbots, priors, and parish priests of England to relieve him out of their abundance. The great abbots fled from the presence of the Papal collector to His Majesty Henry III., and with "doleful voice and downcast face entreated him as "the patron of their churches" to protect them. The abbots of Bury and of Battle were the orators of the suppliant band, and begged Henry III. to stand between them and the Pontiff, "who," they declared, "never ceased to torment them,"-Papa nos incessanter torquenti-and so they had fled for refuge to the royal "counsel and to the bosom of the king's protection."

Henry III. at this time had his own private reasons for withholding his royal protection from the ecclesiastics who invoked it, and accordingly he told the Papal collector that he might do what he pleased with the "miserable" abbotsfacite de ipsis quod vobis placet-and put one of his strongest castles at his disposal for the safe keeping of those who would VOL. III.-NO. v. [New Series.]

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not pay him anything. When the abbots had thus failed, the bishops, seeing that the king would not help them either, made their excuses in another way. They discovered that a general contribution for the relief of their Father required the concurrence and consent of the parish priests; and further, that they had grave doubts about the propriety of contributing at all, because the money would be spent in war against the Emperor. These scruples of the bishops-S. Edmund was in exile-approved themselves to the parish priests, who could not conscientiously give any money to carry on war against Christians; neither could they do so without the consent of the king and his barons, who were hereditary patrons of their churches. Besides, they were really too poor, because, unlike their predecessors, they were not allowed to be pluralists.* The Papal collector and Henry understood their business, and the unwelcome contribution was raised; for the ringleaders of the opposition, men of merit and of learning, were promised richer benefices and dignified promotions whenever the fitting vacancies occurred.

A few years later the nobles and commons of England sent a deputation to the Pope, Innocent IV., in the Council of Lyons, to complain of his exactions and of the "intolerable grievances" which the kingdom suffered at his hands, to the great damage of the king, "the guardian of the Church and the ruler of the realm,"-rex qui est tutor ecclesiæ et regni gubernacula moderatur. This appeal to Henry III., and this threat against the Pontiff, could not at that time be brought to any practical issue; for though the king interfered most seriously with the discipline of the Church, and laboured under an irresistible passion for the revenues of bishops and abbots, he could not help the clergy as they desired, or perhaps even so much as he wished. He was not prepared to live without sacraments, still less to die; and as he was in the habit of hearing mass sung three times every day, he was not likely to abolish the divine office even for the revenues of every bishopric and abbey within his reach. The "nobles and commons" had to wait nearly three hundred years before they found a king to take the clergy under his protection and their revenues into the Exchequer.

That king came at last; pleading his conscience and indulging his passions. When Cardinal Wolsey failed in his schemes, and stood baffled before the immovable rock which would not give way before his ambition, Henry VIII. threw him aside, as a workman casts away a broken tool. The

* Mat. Paris, ad an. 1240, p. 478, ed. 1684.

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