Saint Jude and Me

"Hope doth lead from day to day." - Anne Boleyn, Queen of England (1507-1536)

Today is the feast day of Saint Jude the Apostle, one of the twelve biblical Apostles of Jesus Christ. He is sometimes referred to by one of his other names, Thaddaeus. His origins are somewhat confusing, since the earliest sections of the Church seemed to have regarded him as the stepson of the Virgin Mary and as a son born to Saint Joseph's first marriage. Later, it was suggested that he may have been the Virgin Mary's nephew or a distant cousin of Saint Joseph. Either way, he is usually simply referred to today as "a near kinsman of Jesus Christ" or as a "relative of our Lord, Jesus Christ, of Mary and Joseph". 

Ancient writers tell us that Jude preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. According to Eusebius, one of the Christian Church's first historians, Jude returned to Jerusalem in AD 62 and assisted at the election of his brother, Saint Simeon, as the new Christian bishop of Jerusalem. According to Church tradition, Jude was martyred for his faith three years later, when he was executed in Beirut, alongside another one of the original Twelve - Saint Simon the Zealot. Along with another Apostle, Saint Bartholomew, he is usually credited with introducing Christianity to Armenia and he is therefore highly venerated by the Armenian Apostolic Church today. 

Saint Jude is, of course, most famous for the fact that in the Roman Catholic and Western Christian traditions, he is the patron saint of "lost causes and things despaired of." I have a battered prayer card in my wallet that calls him the "faithful intercessor of all who invoke your special help in time of need." Recently, I've had a lot of cause to think about Saint Jude and what his story has meant to me - particularly over the past year. 

As someone who was raised a Presbyterian, I'm not really supposed to believe in saints - much less in their intercession. However, I don't believe that life ends at death and, on that basis, I have absolutely no problem in believing in that, either. For my own part, all I can say is that both as a believer and a member of society, I do feel as if my personal attitude has been improved by the examples of the saints and by reflecting on what they did as people and what they mean as figures of inspiration. 

This time last year was the beginning of a very difficult time for me, both professionally and personally. It is not in my nature to "over-share" and I tend to be dubious about the hipster-sanctified culture of sharing everything, then hugging about it. To me, that seems to run the risk of substituting good friends for nice ones. (They're not the same thing.) In any case, from one October to the next, I was extremely unhappy. That is not to say that there weren't moments of happiness, but it was impossible to fully enjoy any aspect of my life with the metaphorical sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Then, in June, the professional and the personal hopped into bed together to create a new kind of frustration and a very close friend threw our friendship away for a reason that I, personally, will struggle to forgive for the rest of my life. Needless to say, it did not exactly produce a Bridesheadesque summer of golden memories. 

By the middle of August, it did feel as if all hope was more or less gone. I could not see anyway of getting out of the funk I found myself in. Then, in the space of two short weeks, everything changed. It was perhaps one of the few revolutions in history I was happy to see. (Seriously, France?) I acquired a fantastic new publisher, a new cover, a new book deal, three pieces of amazing career-news arrived my way in a very short period of time and I finally felt that feeling that Reinhold Niebuhr talked about - the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. 

It would have been impossible to keep going up until then without the unwavering support of a few very close and loyal friends. However, I can also say that, for me personally, it was my faith which kept me going - even when I was unaware of it doing so.

For over a year, I have carried a prayer card to Saint Jude in my wallet - ever since being first confronted by a situation in which I saw very little cause for optimism. Most days I pass Saint Jude's Church on Belfast's Ormeau Road and say a little prayer as I do so. The day I received the best career news to date was the start of the 2012 novena (or prayer cycle) to Saint Jude and today, his feast day, is the day when all my work is, for the time being, finished and I am posting off my new, signed contracts. I believe in coincidences; I don't believe this is one of them.

What message have I taken from the last year of living, sometimes unconsciously, with the message of Saint Jude? Well, in the first place, I've re-appreciated the power of prayer; not just because of its complexities, but because it focuses the mind, heightens our self-awareness and stops us from being so selfish. The second point is that this year has made me appreciate the power of hope. Or, as the current President of the United States might say, the audacity of it. 

Legend has it that shortly before she died, Anne Boleyn, one of the figures I admire most from history, left a handwritten note in her prayer-book saying that hope was the force that led people from one day to the next. I happen to believe that's true and, after this year, I believe it even more strongly. Saint Jude is often described as the patron saint of lost causes, but it might be better to describe him as the patron saint of causes that are seemingly lost. One prayer calls him "the Patron of things despaired of." Theist or not, Christian or not, the message of Saint Jude is an inspiring one because it reminds us that hope can shine in even the darkest of situations. Saint Jude's message is a bit like Winston Churchill's most famous quip - if you're going through Hell, then keep going! 

The ancient Mayans apparently believed 2012 would mark the apocalypse. 2012 wasn't the end of the world - it just felt like it sometimes. It doesn't anymore and thank God for that. That's not to say that difficult times won't come around again, but I have new faith in being able to make it through them - thanks to myself, the people around me and to the two thousand year-old Apostle to those in Despair. 

Saint Jude

Saint Jude the Apostle, identified with Thaddaeus the Apostle by some (but not all) historians of the Church, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ and a relative of Jesus and Mary. Both he and the traitor-apostle, Judas Iscariot, would have shared essentially the same name - a variant of the word "Judah". He was a relative, probably a cousin, of Saint James the Just, and ancient writers tell us that Jude preached the gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. According to the early Church chronicler, Eusebius of Caesarea, Saint Jude then returned to Jerusalem, where he assisted with the election of Saint Simeon as bishop of Jerusalem.

Saint Jude was martyred in about 65 A.D., along with another one of the Twelve Apostles, Saint Simon the Zealot. They were preaching either in Beirut or in modern-day Iran when they were beaten to death and then beheaded. Due to this, Saint Jude the Apostle and Martyr was venerated as a saint in Christianity long before the formal process of canonisation was ratified. This is known as a "pre-congregation saint."

Today, Saint Jude is venerated by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox and Syriac Church of the East denominations of Christianity. His feast day in the Eastern communion is 19th June; in the West, it is 28th October. He is the patron saint of lost causes and cases most despaired of. He has a reputation for being one of the most faithful and beloved of Christianity's holy figures.

A beautiful prayer to Saint Jude, which I like very much, is: -

Oh Holy Saint Jude, Apostle and Martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, near kinsman of Jesus Christ, faithful intercessor of all who invoke your special help in time of need. 

To you I have recourse from the depths of my heart and humbly request assistance. Help me in my present and urgent petition.

In return, I promise to make your name known and cause you to be invoked.

Saint Jude, Apostle, martyr and relative of our Lord Jesus Christ, of Mary and Joseph, intercede for us.

I think it's lovely and I hope it helps someone! 

"Vision" (2010)

Novelist Elena Maria Vidal reviews the new German language film Vision, about the life of Saint Hildegard von Bingen, "one of the most extraordinary figures of the Middle Ages, Hildegard was not only a mystic but an author, a musician, a foundress and a director of souls, learned in the natural sciences as well as in theology and philosophy."

It sounds fantastic and it's wonderful that attention to medieval customs and details have been included in the movie. I'm definitely planning to watch it. 

The trailer can be watched below.

For God and Saint Patrick

I love this day.

On days like this, it's often difficult to know what to say without offending somebody. The welt marks left on every community by various episodes in Ireland's history mean that on days like Saint Patrick's, you're bound to get somebody's back up no matter what you say.

But, for me personally, that says a lot more about the people you're offending rather than anything about Saint Patrick or Ireland. So I hope everyone reading this has a glorious Saint Patrick's Day and especially to all the Irish, of whatever denomination or political allegiance, I hope this year we have a Feast of Saint Patrick that brings you joy, good luck and merriment, in equal measure. And Guinness, in even great measure. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everybody! 

The Patron Saint of Writers

Today is the feast day of Saint François de Sales, the patron saint of writers. François was born into the French aristocracy during the reign of King Charles IX in 1567, at a time of great religious and political unrest in France. He was an intelligent and handsome young man, whose parents believed firmly in the benefits of a good education. Unfortunately, for most of his teenage years François suffered from severe depression, after he attended a lecture on pre-destination at the age of thirteen and became convinced that, since pre-destination existed, he was going to Hell when he died. By the time he was eighteen, this five-year long battle with mental ill-health had begun to take its toll on him physically and it was with the greatest of difficulty that he managed to undertake a pilgrimage back to his homeland in southern France. It was whilst he was praying in the church of Saint Etienne, dedicated to the first Christian martyr, that François felt his doubts and fears lift away. He felt filled with joy and decided to dedicate his life entirely to God, rejecting the morbid spirituality of those who believed in pre-destination or a vengeful, vindictive deity. Today François's spiritual philosophy is often called "the Way of Divine Love" and two of his most important philosophical works, Perfections of the Heart of Mary and Introduction to the Devout Life are based on his key theological belief - "God is love."

With his health restored, François completed his education by studying at the Sorbonne and then at the University of Padua, graduating with a doctorate in both Theology and Law. After graduation, he went on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Loreto, where he decided once and for all to become a priest. His father had difficulty in accepting his son's decision, since he wanted François to embrace a secular, aristocratic vocation and marry a local heiress selected by the family. However, eventually François managed to persuade his father that he was meant to enter the Church and he was already armed with the support of the exiled Bishop of Geneva, who was impressed with François's piety, intelligence and charm.

In time, François was to rise through the hierarchy of the Church, armed with these same qualities, eventually succeeding his former mentor as Bishop of Geneva. However, what he was best-known for at the time was his fantastic abilities as both a writer and a preacher. Unlike many of his contemporaries, François had a great deal of sympathy with Protestantism - or, rather, with Protestants. He felt that throughout most of Catholic Europe they had been treated with considerable cruelty and had been subject to sustained state persecution in certain countries which eclipsed anything Catholics were currently facing in Protestant countries. François could see for himself the effect that these persecutions had produced in his native France, in which the country had been crippled during the reigns of Charles IX and Henri III when the government failed to keep a lid on savage sectarian tensions. True to his philosophy, François attempted to reach out to Protestants with messages of love and his Catholic evangelising was particularly productive in Savoy, where he converted many thousands back to "the Old Religion." Because of this aspect of his life, along with the eloquence of his writing, François is today one of the few post-reformation Catholic saints deemed a worthy notary of the Christian faith by the Church of England.

François also exhibited kindness elsewhere in his life by attempting to develop an early form of sign language for his deaf parishioners and also by building personal friendships with Pope Clement VIII and with King Henri IV of France, himself a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. 

François died on the Feast of the Holy Innocents 1622, in the reign of King Louis XIII. He was beatified a mere forty years later by Pope Alexander VII and formally declared a saint in the Roman Catholic religion three years later, by the same pontiff. 

Saint François is also the patron saint of deaf people and journalists. 

Daughter of Riches: The Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and Queen of England (Part I)

“Reared with abundance of all delights, you had a taste for luxury and refinement and enjoyed a royal liberty. You lived richly in your own inheritance, you took pleasure in the pastimes of your women, you delighted in the melodies of flute and drum ... You abounded in riches of every kind.” 

- The poet Richard of Poitiers, writing on Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1176)

This is Part V of this blog's series on the lives of the Queens of England, with apologies for the delay since its last instalment, The Other Queen. The life of Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of the longest in English royal history and, furthermore, she was the queen of two countries and had a lengthy career as Queen Mother also. I have therefore decided to divide this instalment up into three posts - her career as queen of France, her career as queen of England and her widowhood.

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Faith, Reason and the Virgin Birth

".... There is much confusion as to the precise meaning of the Virgin Birth.  It is not to be confused with the Virginal Conception of Our Lord.   The Church, from the earliest times, has articulated the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady as pertaining to three distinct moments:  before the birth of Jesus (ante partum), during the birth of Jesus (in partu), and after birth of Jesus (post partum).  Virtually every time the magisterium has spoken on the subject, this threefold distinction is made.  This teaching is derived from the early fathers of the Church, who maintained, defended and made the teaching a universally held truth..."

Via Tea at Trianon comes a defence of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and, in particular, the full meaning and theological relevance of the Virgin Birth.  

The Other Queen: The Life of Matilda of Boulogne, Queen of England

"In many ways, Matilda of Boulogne was a model consort. As a regent, diplomat, warrior, counsellor and mother, she occupies a position alongside her predecessors Matilda of Scotland and Matilda of Flanders, at the apogee of English queenship, after which many historians concur that the power invested in the office began to decline ... Matilda's husband is one of the great, if misunderstood, failures of English kingship. Matilda herself, though, was never anything less than a great queen." 

- Lisa Hilton, Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens (2008)

Author's Note

Firstly, a note of apology for having taken so long to write and upload the fourth instalment in this blog’s “Queens of England” series. The last update – “The Fair Maid of Brabant” – chronicling the life of Adeliza of Louvain was posted on August 31st, over two months ago. With writing the sequel to Popular and working on various scripts and my Masters degree in Medieval History, things have rather gotten away from me. This post – the life of Adeliza’s successor (although Adeliza never really regarded her as such) – is the last post chronicling the lives of the queens of the House of Normandy, which ruled England from 1066 to 1154. In terms of time, it was a short dynastic reign; in terms of importance, vast. After this, I shall be posting on the House of Normandy’s genealogy and then moving onto the queens of the House of Plantagenet, who reigned from 1154 to 1399. 

Secondly, a note on structure. Just as the names Eleanor and Isabella were to dominate the lists of their immediate successors, the name Matilda was very much the preferred name of the queens of the Anglo-Norman empire. In fact, with the exception of the decorous Adeliza of Louvain, every Anglo-Norman queen bore the name of Matilda. In part, this was because the British-Norman elite was a relatively tiny and close-knit group. Its first queen, Matilda of Flanders, stood as godmother to her future daughter-in-law and successor, who was thus also named Matilda, in her honour. This Matilda (of Scotland), in turn, stood as godmother to this queen, her niece Matilda of Boulogne. All this would potentially be complicated enough from a narrative point-of-view were it not for the fact that for the entirety of Matilda of Boulogne’s time as queen, her life was fatally intertwined with that of her cousin, also named Matilda (herself the daughter of Matilda of Scotland). At the very same time as Matilda of Boulogne claimed to be the true queen-consort of England, her cousin was claiming to be the true queen-regnant. Needless to say, neither acknowledged the legitimacy of the other’s claim. The two Matildas were intimately aware of one another, but from the perspective of telling their story, having two Matildas appearing so frequently in the text is going to be distracting. Luckily, their world was bi- and sometimes even tri-lingual. “Matilda” was the European version of their name, but their Anglo-Saxon subjects preferred to render it by its more traditional usage – “Maud.” This chapter in the series focuses primarily on the life of Matilda of Boulogne, a French heiress married to the prince who controversially seized the throne of England in 1135 and became known as “King Stephen.” Their cousin and rival, who claimed to be the true inheritor of the English crown, was an English princess and the widow of the German Emperor. She will thus be referred to either as “the Empress” or by the Anglo-Saxon variant of her name, “Maud.”

***

ENGLAND,

In the Year of Grace, 1135

The mystic’s eyes gleamed with certainty as he pronounced his prophecy. It is always difficult to tell where the fire of spiritual surety springs from – either a religious gift or a mental imbalance. But the hermit need not have worried; the prince standing before him was a pious soul, much more inclined to see the old man’s mutterings as visionary, rather than insane. It was a dangerous time in England, dangerous, even, for the prince to be consulting the hermit about the matter in question. An old and sick man, who had long outlived the sons of his first marriage, was sitting upon the throne; his queen, beautiful and charming, was barren. After over a decade of marriage, she had produced no children to replace those lost years ago in a catastrophic shipwreck off the coast of Normandy. A crisis of the succession was brewing, just as surely as there was a God in Heaven. Recently, the King’s only surviving legitimate child - a daughter - had recently been made a widow by the death of the German Emperor. In her widowhood, she had returned to her father’s realm, which placed her back in play as viable contender for the succession. Certainly, it seemed to be the old king’s wish to leave his crown to his imperial daughter. But within the elite of his kingdoms in England and Normandy, there were many great lords who said that for them to be ruled over by a woman would be an abomination. They said that the true heir was not the King’s daughter, but his nephew, Stephen.

It was that prince, Stephen, who now stood before the old man, who years earlier had eschewed the vanities of the world and retreated into a life of religious seclusion and poverty where, it was said, the angels had endowed him with the dubious gift of prophecy. The Hermit fixed his rheumy eyes upon the prince who, despite his quiet and chivalrous exterior, wanted so desperately to take the throne of England when his aged uncle at last died. The holy man spoke: the Queen would remain barren. It had been ordained by Heaven that no child would quicken the womb of Adeliza of Louvain, whilst the Crown of England still sat upon her head. The King would not die in England, the monk said next, but rather in his possessions beyond the sea – in Normandy, the land of his ancestors. Finally, he concluded the prophecy by giving the prince the news he had been so desperate to hear – the Empress would not sit upon the throne when her father died. England and Normandy would pass instead to Stephen. Infused by an intoxicating mixture of piety and ambition, Stephen received the hermit’s blessing and hurried swiftly from the dank cave where the holy man chose to worship Christ in solitude and suffering. 

November 2nd, 1755: The Birth of Marie-Antoinette

"Her Majesty has been very happily delivered of a small, but completely healthy, Archduchess."  

- Count Khevenhüller, Court Chamberlain to the Empress Maria-Teresa (1755)

On this day in 1755, the future Queen of France and Navarre, Marie-Antoinette of Austria (above), was born in the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg Palace, Vienna. She was the fifteenth child and eleventh daughter of the Empress Maria-Teresa, the hereditary ruler of the Hapsburg dominions which then included most of modern-day Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as parts of the former kingdom of Yugoslavia, Italy and Poland, and her husband, the Emperor Franz-Stefan, the elected leader of the Holy Roman Empire (comprising most of modern-day Germany.) 

Since this was her fifteenth time undergoing labour, the Empress saw no reason for it to disrupt her work schedule. Up until the last minute, Her Imperial Majesty kept herself busy - reading government documents and signing state papers. And then, the moment her eleventh daughter had entered the world, the Empress returned to the business of government, requesting that some recent policy proposals be brought to her for inspection. It was half-past eight in the evening and the birth had taken place in the Empress's luxurious apartments on the first floor of the palace. Her husband, waiting outside, was delighted that both wife and baby were in good health. Whatever his faults - namely a taste for fine-living and pretty women - the Emperor Franz-Stefan was a wonderful father. Once he knew that everything had gone as expected, he dutifully made his way to the imperial chapel for a Te Deum service of thanksgiving for the safe delivery of the Empress and the new Archduchess. There, he was joined by the various members of the Court aristocracy who had been waiting in the palace's Mirror Room, as etiquette now required. 

There was a slightly superstitious frisson at the fact that the baby princess had been born on the second day of November - the Feast of All Souls in the liturgical calendar - or, put crudely, the Day of the Dead. Every church, chapel and cathedral in Vienna was hung in black to remind people to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory - even in terms of a visual aesthetic, it was hardly an encouraging welcome into the world of the living for the Empress's latest child. These poor omens were only added to when news later arrived that on the very day of the birth, Lisbon, capital city of Portugal, had been hit by a devastating earthquake - one of the worst in European history - resulting in the deaths of 30,000 people. The King and Queen of Portugal, José the Reformer and his wife, Mariana-Victoria of Spain, were some of the new Hapsburg princess's godparents, which was again interpreted by some superstitious souls as a sign of bad luck. They had been fleeing their collapsing palace at the moment their Austrian god-daughter had been born.

November 1st: The Feast of All Saints

From the blog Cross of Laeken comes a prayer for today's feast - the Feast of All Saints - with an illustration of one of my favourite works of art - Fra Angelico's magnificent carving of the saints in Heaven.

The Queen and the Tsarina

"Both women were vilified in ways that transcended all reality by their political enemies. In order to pull apart a family, destroy the image of the mother; in order to bring a nation into revolution, then destroy the reputation/ image of the queen/ empress, who was the mother figure of the people. If they could convince the people that the queen/empress was evil and that the king/tsar was an idiot, then it meant the children were no good and the entire family should be gotten rid of. It was a deliberate ploy. Antoinette and Alexandra are tragic because no matter what they did it played into the hands of their enemies.  The Great Catherine outwardly had lovers and no one held it against her and she was loved by the people. Napoleon's Josephine spent more money on clothes in one year than Marie-Antoinette did in her entire life and yet Josephine was popular with the French people. "

- Elena Maria Vidal, author of Trianon, Madame Royale and The Night's Dark Shade

Via the blog The Sword and the Sea comes a report of a recent online debate on the Alexander Palace Forum debating who was more maligned - Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France (1755 - 1793) or the Empress Alexandra of Russia (1872 - 1918.) American novelist, Elena Maria Vidal, herself the author of two novels based on the lives of Marie-Antoinette's family, offers a judiciously even-handed comparison of both women.

The Tsarina's demonisation by the opponents of the Russian monarchy is tragic, as is the breakdown of her own health in the years after 1905. However, in terms of picking who was the more unfairly traduced, my own sympathies would probably lie on the side of Marie-Antoinette. One gains the impression that she was certainly the "nicer" of the two women - if you had to pick which one to have dinner with, I'm sure Marie-Antoinette would top most people's list. However, the fact that Alexandra was a difficult personality is in itself part of the tragedy of her life and death. Alexandra's determination and struggle to remain devoted to her marriage and her belief in absolute monarchy, even as she faced her own health concerns, the terrible tragedy of her only son's life-threatening illness and her inability to like the glittering, high society glamour of life in Saint Petersburg, is truly admirable. That she was eventually consumed by paranoic fantasies of conspiracy theories is tragic, but perhaps unsurprising.

Interestingly, during her first official State Visit as Empress of Russia, Alexandra visited Paris with her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, and stayed in the apartments at Versailles once occupied by Marie-Antoinette. Like many Victorians, Alexandra was genuinely fascinated by the tragedy of Marie-Antoinette and she kept a large portrait of the dead Queen of France in her own apartments at Tsarskoe Selo.

September 24th: The Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham

 Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, with its cult centre in Norfolk, England. There are currently two churches in Walsingham - one a High Anglican chapel, the other (one mile away) is its Roman Catholic sister. In the Anglican church, a small Russian Orthodox shrine to the Virgin is also kept, so Christians of all denominations are represented. In a further sign of Marianist ecumenicalism, pilgrims regularly walk barefoot along the Holy Mile between the two churches. For High Anglican and Catholic members of the Armed Forces, there is a long tradition stretching back to the First World War, which placed the Virgin of Walsingham as one of the British army, navy and air force's patrons.

Although it is certainly a lovely place, Walsingham is by no means as well-known as other Marianist shrines at, say, Lourdes or Fatima, or even Knock and Loretto. Its visitor numbers are ant-like in comparison to those who visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. But, prior to the English Reformation, Walsingham was perhaps one of the most visited Christian centres in Europe, certainly in England, and it boasted an enormous, lavish complex and church.

Daughter of the Church: The Life of Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England

"From the time England first became subject to kings, out of all the queens none was found to be comparable to her, and none will be found in time to come, whose memory will be praised and name will be blessed throughout the ages."
- The Hyde Chronicle

For seventeen years after the death of Matilda of Flanders, England had no queen. William the Conqueror followed his wife to the grave four years later, to be succeeded in England by his son, William II, who for his own reasons decided not to marry. When William died and was succeeded by his brother, Henry I, in 1100, the new King married for reasons very similar to his father’s – his chosen queen was a princess of unassailable royal ancestry and famed for her piety. The two queens even shared the same Christian name and, in fact, the new Queen Matilda had been the god-daughter of the old. Unlike her predecessor however, the new Queen was not beautiful. One of her champions rather kindly said that the Queen’s appearance was ‘not entirely to be despised.’

Beauty or no beauty, Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England, had an august lineage and, as the career of her predecessor showed, such things mattered at that time. Matilda could claim in her family one parent who was to become a character in a Shakespearean play and another who was to become a Catholic saint. Her father, Malcolm III, King of Scots, was the hero whose victory heralds the end of Macbeth, whilst Matilda’s mother, Queen Margaret, was an English princess so famed for her religious zeal that she was to be canonised in the 13th century by Pope Innocent IV. Four of Matilda’s brothers and one of her half-brothers – Duncan II, Edmund, Edgar, Alexander I and David I – were to wear the Crown of Scotland and her sister, Mary, was to become the mother of the Queen of England in the next generation.

Sixteen Nuns Slaughtered on the Steps of the Guillotine

"I learned from a person who was a witness to their martyrdom that the youngest of these good Carmelites was called first and that she went to kneel before her venerable Superior, asked her blessing and permission to die. She then mounted the scaffold singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes. She then went to place herself beneath the blade allowing the executioner to touch her. All the others did the same. The Venerable Mother was the last sacrificed. During the whole time, there was not a single drum-roll; but there reigned a profound silence."
- The Superior General of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers (1794) writing of the execution of sixteen Carmelite nuns by the French Republic

Despite having promised universal equality and freedom of religion, in 1794, during its official "Reign of Terror," the French Revolution ordered the execution of sixteen Carmelite nuns, the day after their Order's high feast day - the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The evidence used to bring the nuns to the guillotine was a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotional device beloved by French Catholic royalists. An image of the Sacred Heart was found within their convent and was thus "proof" of their treasonous intentions against the new Republic.

The nuns were executed showing commendable bravery, singing hymns and kneeling to receive the blessing of their Reverend Mother, who was beheaded last. The crowd watching was mostly silent, out of respect, save for a few zealous republicans in the front rows. Not since the execution a few months earlier of the late King's sister, 29 year-old Princess Elisabeth, had the Parisian crowd seen such a heroic and deliberately Christian death. (The Princess had led the other dozen or so people sentenced to die with her in prayer, including a condemned mother and her son, as they mounted the steps of the scaffold. Like the nuns, who bowed before their Reverend Mother, those sentenced to die before the Princess, bowed or curtsied to her, as she was forced to sit next to the guillotine and watch them die, before she herself was beheaded.)

The blog Laudem Gloriae recounts the story of the Carmelite sisters' death, which I came across via Tea at Trianon.

July 6th, 1535: The Execution of Sir Thomas More

Today marks the anniversary of the beheading of Sir Thomas More (above), the former confidante and adviser of King Henry VIII of England. More, who had provided the eulogy at the funeral of Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York, in 1503, had served as Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532, during which time he became increasingly uncomfortable at his master's ecclesiastical policies. He resigned, but was eventually executed for treason three years later.

Canonised by the Roman Catholic Church in 1935, modern perceptions of Sir Thomas vary - at a recent debate on the role of the Catholic Church in history, the British man of letters, Stephen Fry, thundered at Catholic MP and apologist, Ann Widdecombe, that it was a matter almost obscene that somehow like More should be venerated as a saint, particularly as the patron of private conscience, given his treatment of heretics during his time as Lord Chancellor. Widdecombe defended More's canonisation and something of the differing reactions to him can be reflected in cinematic portrayals of him - be it the hagiographic A Man For All Seasons, the intensely critical God's Outlaw or the more balanced characterisation by Jeremy Notham in The Tudors. As with so many of his contemporaries, what we know (or, rather, think we know) about Sir Thomas is based on hearsay or particularly resilient legends. Chief amongst the more nonsensical stories told about him is the idea that he personally tortured the heretics captured with a cat o' nine tails or that he championed Katherine of Aragon and refused to accept Anne Boleyn as the new queen. In fact, perhaps to his credit, More was one of the few people who personally admired Katherine but didn't see her cause and that of the Catholic Church in England as symbiotic. At the time of Anne's Coronation, the man who would be a saint, wrote: -

"So am I he among his Grace's other faithful subjects, his Highness being in possession of his marriage and this noble woman really anointed queen, neither murmur at it nor dispute upon it, nor never did nor will, but without any other manner meddling of the matter among his other faithful subjects, faithfully pray to God for his Grace and hers both long to live and well, and their noble issue too, in such wise as may be to the pleasure of God, honour and surety to themselves, rest, peace, wealth and profit unto this noble realm."

A legal defense of Sir Thomas is mounted by the excellent blogger, Claire Ridgway, here.

Early Christian icons uncovered

Firstly, a word of condolence to the Northern Irish blogger, "Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland," whose posts on the history of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster and their surviving (or vanished) homes are both invaluable and fascinating. He sadly lost his mother, whom he affectionately nicknamed "the Dowager," when she passed away peacefully at 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 19th. Sincere condolences, thoughts and prayers to him and his family at this sad time.

Secondly, and on an unrelated note, excavations in Rome have uncovered some of the earliest surviving Christian icons of Saint Peter, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Andrew (above; the patron saint of Scotland), as well as the evangelical Saint Paul, author of much of the latter-half of the New Testament. They were discovered in Santa Tecla catacombs beneath the Eternal City.

MSNBC has more on the story, including accounts of how lasers were used to help uncover these artifacts, the happy partnership between religion and science which helped unearth them and a little on their historical significance.