jects."137

Parsons seems to have recognized this in his attending primarily to the rich,138 as the nucleus of the reconversion. For we must not forget that Parsons looked forward to the reconversion rather than the conquest of England.

Meanwhile Elizabeth had used the Established Church to bolster her own position, 139 Robert Cecil had managed his ship of state so effectively140 that England's great religious revolution had occurred without foreign invasion for almost twenty years while her two continental rivals were check-mating each other. Lord Burley may have been anti-French primarily, but it was by skilfully playing France off against Philip that England was allowed to work her persecution without foreign invasion. Elizabeth's encouragement of the suit of the Duke of Anjou in 1587141 well indicates her constant policy of carrying her diplomacy into Europe to forestall any move against her kingdom.

The Rising of the North in 1569142 had been a loose conspiracy of some of the older aristocracy. It was not a great religious rebellion. Its failure served considerably to check any possible effort to carry out the bull, Regnans in Excelsis, which arrived shortly after the suppression of the revolt. Mary Stuart's unfortunate mishaps and especially the possible ill repute which clouded her, even in the eyes of the persecuted English Catholics, both contributed to Elizabeth's strength.

France had been the center of a pro-Elizabethan party even in Mary's day.143 Opposition to Spain was a large factor. Parsons opposed Alençon's suit, probably from a suspicion of French motives and conduct. The home of Gallicanism and the Politiques could hardly have been expected to furnish thorough going soldiers for the Church, even though individuals like Bellarmine could be found. Bodin's refusal to heed the plea that he intercede for Campion1 is a good index to the considerations which must have influenced Parsons. In fact, Parsons' anti-French

137 SIMPSON, op. cit., 153.

138 TAUNTON, op. cit., 62.

139 KLINE, Persecution in the Reign of Elizabeth, 34, 127, cp.

140 HUME, The Great Lord Burley, 97.

141

POLLEN, op. cit., 397.

142 BIRT, op. cit., 475-501.

143 HUME, Two English Queens and Philip, 137-138.

144

Cath. Rec. Soc., Miscl. II, 183.

principles are evidence of a clear-eyed zeal for a perfect restoration of Catholicism, rather than of any ingrained partiality for Spain.

Similarly do charges of his anti-Scottish activity for mere love of Spain fall to the ground. It was natural enough for Philip to demur at laboring for the establishment of James Stuart upon the English Throne, and Olivares seems to have used sharp practice in his negotiations with the Pope in 1586.145 Sixtus V very plainly expected to have a Catholic sovereign established by Philip II, and not to have Philip himself assume the Crown.146 Parsons showed himself eager for the safety of James Stuart in 1583 when the Duke of Lennox constituted a dominating Catholic influence upon the young monarch.147 In that year, Parsons secured a pension from Pope Gregory for a body guard for the king.148 And it is noteworthy in view of the frequent assertions of Parsons' personal aggressiveness that he urged that Father Matthieu or some Scotchman be sent as superior to Scotland rather than himself, because of his unfamiliarity with the people there.149 I think that it is clear that Parsons was sincere, not only in disavowing all connection with the Gunpowder Plot,150 but in pointing out the incompatibility of praising Elizabeth at the same time as James I, in view of the history of Mary Stuart-"for it is impossible that one heaven should hold both these Queens, in life and beliefe so quite opposite."151

Robert Parsons undoubtedly staked his hopes upon the accession of the Infanta. James I, as we know, peacefully attained the throne.152 Parsons then attempted to emphasize his perdilection for James.153 Catholics had expected to attain toleration from the son of Mary Stuart. As Garnet wrote on 16 April, 1603,154 "Great fears were; but all are turned into greatest security;

145

146

Letters of Allen, op. cit., Memorandum, lxxvi-lxxvii.

MEYER, op. cit., 320 and app. xx.

147 Cp. Letters of Allen, lii. Note also HUME, Two English Queens and Philip, 407, ff.

148 Cath. Rec. Soc., IV, iii.

149 Ibid., 145.

150

Answer to Barlow, Preface, 72-73.

151 Ibid., par. 116.

152 TAUNTON, op. cit., 274-284.

153 Cp. correspondence with GARNET, in DODD. Church History, IV, lxv.

154 Ibid., lxiv.

and a golden time we have of unexpected freedom abroad. Great hope is of toleration; and so general a consent of Catholics in his proclaiming, as it seemeth God will work much." And he asks that there should be no foreign efforts against James. The Pope strove patiently "to try what may be done by fayre means with him,"155 while other Princes awaited the outcome. The fruitlessness of these conciliatory efforts is known, and the last phase of Parsons' life is concerned with a polemic with James I concerning the Oath of Allegiance.

Professor McIlwain stresses the importance of James' "partial translation into law of what Elizabeth's ministers had practised by holding the law in obeyance."156 The Oath of Allegiance157 stirred up great perplexity. The Archpriest Blackwell himself consented to take it "as it lay in a certain sense" to the great scandal of the faithful, and to his own immediate deprivation. The question was put to the Pope who decided "that the whole Oath as it lay could not be admitted with the integrity of the Catholike Faith." Catholics unanimously longed for toleration and even sought to secure permission to hold services legally by compounding the Recusancy fines.158 The refusal to grant this toleration shows the uncompromising attitude of the secular state to purely religious activity, for no accusations of domestic or foreign danger would be raised to such a petition. as this. McIlwain quotes Bellarmine's concise statement, "To take this oath non tam jurari fidelitatem ad Regem, quam objurari fidelitatem ad Christi Vicarium."159 Consequently Catholics could not take James' Oath of Allegiance.

This brief survey of the diplomatic efforts to secure the reestablishment of the Catholic Religion in England has shown, I hope, that the object of the Jesuits was consistently religious. Their weakness lay somewhat in the very anxiety to support any possible agency for that end. Parsons tended to bank primarily upon Spain. We now see the futility of this effort, but I do not see why we should blame Parsons for this error in judgment

when Creighton also erred in the other direction, expecting at least toleration under James. The Pope constantly tried to effect reconciliation and cannot be accused of having attempted to hand England over to Spain. The error had been made, if at all, in not declaring bluntly the fact of Elizabeth's usurpation upon her accession to the throne. But even then sincere efforts for conciliation merely subjected England to the wiles of Elizabeth while the cause of religion suffered.

We now come to the consideration of Fr. Parsons' political theories. Like other philosophers, Parsons is significant rather for the new application of ideas long prevalent than for the novelty of his concepts. Really new ideas are seldom to be found, but the application of the old concepts to new conditions is the process which keeps political theory fresh and seemingly inexhaustible. St. Thomas' virtual discovery and publication of Aristotelian philosophy to the Middle Ages was perhaps more momentous and influential than the original enunciation, for the conception of the Toλireia was used by Church and State theorists in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries more effectively than it could have been in Greece and Rome when the city state which had conditioned it vanished so abruptly. Parsons himself was a controversialist rather than a pure theorist. He labored like the parish priest in the vineyard itself, participating in the toil even while directing the efforts of others. He did not live a secluded life engaged in the sole occupation of formulating political structures. He wrote no great systematic philosophy, therefore, and yet the consecutiveness of his thought wrought uniformity to his teachings. I have already indicated the substance of his doctrines in passing, and have explained particularly his attitude upon toleration. In Parts II and III following, I shall present his political theories. The keynote necessary for their understanding is the great fact that they were all written for the sole purpose of re-establishing the Catholic Church in England. B. F. WIESMAN,

(To be continued)

Essex, Mass.

There is a bright little island on Europe's westmost verge, whose name was wont in recent happy days to bring a smile to the lips and a song to the heart, and which from of old the poets named the Island of Destiny, Innisfail.

That little island, Innisfail, is not of course the subject of this paper, but the name may serve to suggest a study of our own land, America, which early voyagers hitherward used to designate Irland it Mikla, Greater Ireland. The old Norse vikings in various of their sagas make mention of a wide expanse of territory to the south of Vinland the Good to which they gave the name of Greater Ireland, in token, let us hope, that it was destined to prove some day a greater Innisfail than the little island of saints and scholars beyond the Atlantic.

Ireland's destiny is not hidden among the mysteries of the future. It stands out luminous in the records of the past. There was first of all a golden age when all the island rang with childlike praise of God and Mary, when half the people were consecrated to the virgin life, and when every foot of ground entombed a saint. Then came an iron age, when rack and sword and pike sent up to heaven an army of Christian martyrs whose numbers are known to the omniscient God alone. In our day its destiny is clear as the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens: this is the age of apostles. From Armagh to Baltimore, from Los Angeles to Auckland, from Melbourne to Manila, from Zanzibar to Sierra Leone, from the Cape of Good Hope to Riga, aye, from the right hand of the chair of Peter, the sons of Innisfail are the heralds of the pure and true gospel: verily, their sound has gone forth to the ends of the earth.1 Is America to be Irland it Mikla, a Greater Ireland?

Every land, like every man, has a mission here on earth, a divinely chosen work to do. We, Catholics of America, are not of those whose souls have failed to say: "This is my own, my

Paper read at second Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association.

1

The bishops of the Sees named, all natives of Ireland, except the last, who is surely entitled to special notice, were, according to the Annuario Pontificio for 1924, Curley, Cantwell, Clearly, Mannix, O'Doherty, Neville, O'Gorman, McSherry and Rooney, and O'Rourke.