'To maintain the King's Supremacy': an 1826 episcopal visitation charge, the Roman Catholic Relief Act, and the Georgian constitution
It was also the background to Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, in his August 1826 primary visitation charge to his clergy in Salisbury Cathedral, addressing the matter. He began in an innocuous, fashion, referring to how Canon One of the Canons of 1604 required clergy to teach the Royal Supremacy:
One of these subjects respects the very first Canon of our Church, by which you are required, four times every year at the least, in your Sermons and Lectures, to maintain the King's Supremacy; and to teach that no foreign Power hath any jurisdiction within this realm.
So far, so good. The Royal Supremacy underpinned the life of United Church of England and Ireland as as a national church, securing its rights and liberties - belonging to "every particular or national Church" (Article XXXIV) - against the claims of the papal supremacy.
Burgess, however, did not stop here. Reflecting widespread opinion in both the Church and the country, he then invoked the Royal Supremacy against what was known as Catholic Emancipation:
If this duty had been constantly performed since the first promulgation of the Canon, there would, probably, have been at this day no question among Protestants of the Church of England respecting the justice or policy of admitting to any share of political power in this country, any persons who refuse to acknowledge the King's entire Supremacy in his own dominions; and at the same time submit themselves to a foreign Power held by them, in Ecclesiastical concerns, to be superior to the sovereignty of the Realm. The inconsistency of such intrusive Power, with every natural and civil principle of society, is so obvious and insurmountable, that false pretences of religion, grounded on misinterpretations of Scripture, are necessary to give any colour to it.
It was a robust, full-throated rejection of Catholic Emancipation - that is, of Roman Catholic subjects of the Crown sitting in the Commons and Lords without having to renounce their faith. How should a New Georgian respond to this? Can we really urge an appreciation of Georgian Anglicanism when it gave expression to such views, views that can have no relevance for contemporary Anglicans?
To begin, New Georgians happily acknowledge that Georgian Anglicanism knew moral flaws and failures as deep and as profound as any other era of the Church, including our own. In seeking, however, to understand Burgess' opposition to Catholic Emancipation, we can see how a virtue is to be found in it. When consideration is given to reform of a stable constitutional order, reasoned opposition to such reform serves the interests of the body politic. Reasoned opposition encourages meaningful debate, calls forth an explanation for reform that seeks to persuade others, alerts to unintended consequences, and draws proponents of reform to seek moderation.
Burgess' pronounced opposition to Catholic Emancipation is also a reminder that episcopal opinion was divided on the matter. 19 of the Lords Spiritual voted against the Bill in 1829 - 10 voted for it. Whereas Burgess lamented the passage of the Bill, the Whig Bishop of Norwich, Henry Bathurst, rejoiced in a "triumph of civil and religious liberty". Such political diversity amongst the Lords Spiritual - a stark contrast, we may note, to the current Lords Spiritual - ensured that they reflected the various views within the political nation.
The case against Catholic Emancipation articulated by Burgess invites us to consider the case for it, as seen in that great Anglican statesman of the Georgian era, Edmund Burke. Some decades before Burgess gave his charge in Salisbury Cathedral, Burke had stated that "our Constitution is not made for great, general, and proscriptive exclusions". Contrary to those, such as Burgess, who invoked the King's Coronation Oath against Catholic Emancipation, Burke emphasised that regarding "maintain[ing] the laws of God" - which he interpreted as "the natural moral laws" - and "the true profession of the Gospel", "which I suppose is understood affirmatively the Christian religion", that there was an ecumenical consensus on these commitments:
All this shows that the religion which the king is bound to maintain has a positive part in it, as well as a negative,—and that the positive part of it (in which we are in perfect agreement with the Catholics and with the Church of Scotland) is infinitely the most valuable and essential.
As for "the Protestant Reformed religion established by law", evidence from elsewhere in British Empire indicated that Roman Catholics, sharing in political rights and liberties, would not overturn a Protestant Episcopal establishment. Burke was here referring to Quebec, with its English ecclesiastical establishment" alongside "the former Gallican Church settlement":
In that system, the Canadian Catholics were far from being deprived of the advantages or distinctions, of any kind, which they enjoyed under their former monarchy. It is true that some people, and amongst them one eminent divine, predicted at that time that by this step we should lose our dominions in America. He foretold that the Pope would send his indulgences hither; that the Canadians would fall in with France, would declare independence, and draw or force our colonies into the same design. The independence happened according to his prediction; but in directly the reverse order. All our English Protestant colonies revolted. They joined themselves to France; and it so happened that Popish Canada was the only place which preserved its fidelity, the only place in which France got no footing, the only peopled colony which now remains to Great Britain ... We had no dread for the Protestant Church which we settled there, because we permitted the French Catholics, in the utmost latitude of the description, to be free subjects. They are good subjects, I have no doubt; but I will not allow that any French Canadian Catholics are better men or better citizens than the Irish of the same communion.
For Burke, then, contrary to Burgess, the Georgian constitutional order demonstrated that "to admit ... Catholic subjects to the rights and liberties which ought to belong to them as Englishmen, (not as religionists)" secured that constitutional order, including its Protestant Episcopal establishment.
Finally, it is precisely by taking Burgess seriously and attending to his case against Catholic Emancipation that we are brought to see that the national Church and the Royal Supremacy were not undone by the 1829 Roman Catholic Relief Act. An 1840 biography of Burgess summarised his case against Catholic Emancipation:
He concluded by intimating his apprehension that the measure, if carried, would expose the established Church to imminent peril, and the country to the fatal mistake, and bitter consequences of sacrificing principle to expediency.
This, however, was not to be the case. As historian Nicholas Dixon has brilliantly argued, the outcome of the so-called 'constitutional revolution' of 1828-32 did not "militate against Anglican interests":
What really occurred between 1828 and 1832 was not a 'revolution' but an 'adjustment' of the British constitution, at least so far as the Church of England was concerned. '[S]atisfactory & safe adjustment' was what Peel professed to advocate in 1829, and this, in large measure, was what he, Wellington and Grey achieved.
Something of this is seen in the sermons delivered in 1840, on a day of thanksgiving for the failure of an attempt on the life of Queen Victoria. The sermon of the Old High divine William Jacobson - who would be appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University in 1848 and Bishop of Chester in 1865 - made clear that he had no notion of a 'revolution' or of 'national apostasy':
And surely, situated as we are, our Kings and Queens acting as nursing-fathers and nursing-mothers to the Church,—with a well-balanced Constitution —living under the sanctions of law,—not the caprice of a Ruler,—the rights of all orders, even the humblest, carefully maintained,—and the duties of all, even the highest, rigidly enforced,—we ought to feel no difficulty, no backwardness, in complying with the exhortation of the Apostle: we ought to be forward and hearty in offering our prayers and thanksgivings for all who are in authority over us.
And what loyal subject of our most gracious Queen Victoria - what enlightened citizen of the British empire - but must recognise the veracity of this divine order today? ... Let the fervour of the millions congregated to-day around the altars of our native land, to bless the God who saved her from the hands of traitors, answer for the loyalty of Catholic Ireland to the Queen ... Therefore, most gracious lady, Queen of these mighty islands, your faithful Catholics of Ireland yield to no denomination in the fervour of their aspirations to the mercy seat for the security and felicity of your reign.
Contrary to Burgess' fears, there was no imminent peril to the national Church as a result of Catholic Emancipation. What emerged after 1829 and the Roman Catholic Relief Act was the same constitutional and ecclesiastical order that Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury, had rightly set before his clergy on that August day in 1826: a national Church, under the Royal Supremacy, upheld by Parliament. Burgess' charge, therefore, may be wisely received by us as an example of the need for prudence, modesty, and reserve in the pursuit of virtuous aims.
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