8 February 2023

A New Bank Holiday?

 Yes, of course! Most certainly, today, February 8, should be a Bank Holiday in this Kingdom of England! (As everybody knows, England embraces Wales.)

For it is the Anniversary of the happy day (in 1550) when Pope Julius III was elected Successor of S Peter! Depromite ...

Julius, that great Papa del Monte who presided as legate over Trent (I hope all readers adhere closely to the Spirit of the Council ... that Council) and later sent Reginald Pole as Cardinal Legate to reconcile this Blessed Realm to the Petrine Unity!

May God hasten the day when another Monarch and the two Houses of Parliament (perhaps thinned out a trifle by some Acts of Attainder), on their knees, beg a Papal Legate to absolve the realm from heresy and schism!

I wish someone would re-issue the fine medal which I presume the Holy Father issued as on S Andrew's Day ... the medal with ANGLIA RESURGES; a benign pontiff stretching out his reconciling hand to a kneeling Anglia as Pole (beard, galero and all) presents her in the rejoicing presence of the Emperor, and of our late sovereign lord King Philip ... 

... I wonder if anyone could explain this oddity which has puzzled me for my eighty two years: for four centuries, lists of English monarchs never mentioned that we were fortunate enough to have a King Philip ...

... and, on the far right, our late sovereign lady Queen Mary -- I think, the first of the Four Ladies of that glorious Name to be de jure Queens regnant of England.

At this point, a moment of sadness intrudes: Her Majesty has her hand upon her swelling belly; signalling, I presume, the pregnancy that turned out to be ... not.

In the exergue, the words UT NUNC NOVISSIMO DIE pointedly allude to the actual day in 1554 of the legatine Absolution; the Day of England's Resurrectio.

[The medal is among the illustrations in Duffy's Fires, and is on the front cover of Urquhart's Ceremonies.]

 

4 comments:

scotchlil said...

It's an odd novel, but Benson's 'Lord of All' is a fascinating attempt to envisage a United Kingdom in which the Catholic Faith has triumphed in the way you contemplate...

Jhayes said...

Philip was King jure uxoris a step up from King Consort but he ceased to be King when Mary died. All laid out, in detail, by Parliament in the Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Father. Do you think it would be a good idea or a bad idea to restore the oath of loyalty in which MPs vowed the true faith of a Christian to be members of Parliament?

Ken W said...

4 queen regnants named Mary - Mary I (Tudor) and Mary II (Stuart - daughter of James II) - are you counting Mary of Scotland as the third - and the fourth one?