British Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See, 1793–1830

Abstract

All societies are propped up by conscious and subconscious mythologies about their own origins, and about their mission within the larger world community. Anglo-Saxon mythology about its origins and development, and the position of Roman Catholicism in relation to this mythology, made entering into diplomatic relations with the Sovereign of the Roman States and head of the Roman Catholic Church a very long and delicate process. English Protestants regarded Catholicism as a mixture of anathema, superstition, and papal despotism; and everything that was English and precious was opposed to that terrible and oppressive Romanism which the genius of England had overthrown. England was a model for the world of constitutional liberty, of law and order, or prosperity and mortality; Romanism represented little other than the perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. England prided itself on the literary, social, economic, and political accomplishments of English civilisation; Romanism conjured up images of immoral monks with vast wealth, Babington and Guy Fawkes, Titus Oates and Jesuitical casuistry, James II and monarchical tyranny. England was proud of her constitutional heritage, a heritage with deep roots in the forests of Germany; from the same Germany came the messiah who freed England from the idolatry of Rome; and on the throne of England sat a German constitutional monarch, bound by oath to uphold the Protestant succession. Roman Catholicism was linked with indolent Italians, immoral Frenchmen, and barbarous Irish; with craftiness, and the horrors of the confessional box. Memories of the Armada and Bloody Mary's persecutions, visions of Huguenots burning on St Bartholomew's Day, were still vivid in popular consciousness, and Foxe's Book of Martyrs was high on the best-seller lists.