No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
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.
1 Myth and Mythmaking, ed. H. A. Murray (Boston, 1960). This anthology contains some excellent essays on national mythology. Of particular note are the following: J. Cambell, ‘The Historical Development of Mythology’, and J. T. Marcus, ‘The World Impact of the West: The Mystique and the Sense of Participation in History’.
2 The Times was an important factor in the anti-Catholic Movement after 1835. The pattern of the No-Popery Campaign which evolved in that year was followed successfully in each of the following years to 1841. In an effort to discredit the leaders of the Liberal Party before a Protestant public, the Tory press sought to excite a fear of Popery ‘by continually referring to its unchanging ends and purposes, thereby fostering loyalty to England's national institutions by intensifying the English-Irish and Protestant-Catholic conflict’. Cahill, G. A., ‘Irish Catholicism and English Toryism’, The Review of Politics, 19 (1957), p. 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 The literature on the subject of Victorian anti-Catholic prejudice is extensive. But the following books and articles are of particular note. Arnsten, W. L., ‘Victorian Prejudice Re-examined’, Victorian Studies, 12 (1969);Google Scholar Gilley, S., ‘Protestant London, No-Popery and the Irish Poor, 1830–60’, in Recusant History, 10 (1970);Google Scholar Hexter, J. H., ‘The Protestant Revival and the Catholic Question in England, 1778–1829’, in The Journal of Modern History, 8 (1936);Google Scholar Machin, G. I. T., The Catholic Question in English Politics (Oxford, 1964);Google Scholar Norman, E. R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968);Google Scholar Curtis, L. P., Anglo-Saxons and Celts (Bridgeport, 1968).Google Scholar
4 Smith, H. A., ‘Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See, 1815–1830’, in The Law Quarterly Review, 48 (1932), pp. 374–5Google Scholar (Hereafter: Smith, ‘Diplomatic Relations’).
5 Graham, R. A., Vatican Diplomacy (Princeton, 1959), p. 42,Google Scholar (Hereafter: Graham, Vatican Diplomacy).
6 Lemon to Canning, 26 November 1823. F.O. 34/17. Robert Lemon, Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, reported to Canning in 1823 that his researches had revealed no record of any official intercourse with the Holy See from 1558, when Sir Edward Karne was Ambassador at Rome.
7 The Catholic George Gage travelled to Rome in May 1621 to negotiate a dispensation for the marriage of Prince Charles and the Spanish Infanta. Though officially a representative of English Roman Catholics, he was in reality an envoy of James I. Gordon, Albion, Charles I and the Court of Rome (London, 1935), p. 21.Google Scholar (Hereafter: Albion, Charles I). Gage's mission kept him in the Eternal City for fourteen months, and he returned to England in July 1622 to report the progress of negotiations. He returned to Rome again in January 1623 on the same errand, but the discussions were interrupted and terminated in March, when Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham visited Madrid. Stephen, Gaselee, ‘British Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See’, in The Dublin Review, 204 (January 1939), pp. 1–2 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Gaselee). Subsequently, Charles I wed Henrietta Maria of France, and this marriage both brought about and conditioned a new era in the relationship between London and Rome. Albion, Charles I, pp. 49–103. In 1633, Sir Robert Douglas, a Roman Catholic Scotsman, arrived in Rome. He was more the envoy of Queen Henrietta Maria than of Charles I, but Charles seems to have taken him to some extent into his confidence, and was not averse to his plan of encouraging Urban VIII to create a British Cardinal. It was Douglas who suggested that the Pope should send an envoy to London, and His Holiness chose for that purpose the Oratorian, Gregorio Panzani, who arrived in London on 15 December 1634. Officially he was sent as an agent to the Queen, but in fact his relations with the King were very close. Panzani was succeeded by the Scotsman George Conn, who stayed in England from 1636 to 1639; while another Scot, Sir William Hamilton, acted at the same time as Queen Henrietta Maria's agent at Rome. In 1639, Count Carlo Rossetti came to England as the Pope's envoy, but due to the temper of the times, his stay was short and troubled. In retrospect, it is evident that the Papal envoys would have been better advised had they confined their activities in England to the general position of Catholics, or to questions of foreign politics, such as the Palatinate. However, they all made the mistake of trying for individual conversions, and in the process brought upon themselves the ire of both the Puritans and the High Church divines. After 1640, the position of British Catholics rapidly deteriorated. The arrest, imprisonment, and in some cases the execution of priests, recommenced; the Papal agents left England; and diplomatic relations were for the time totally at an end. There was a momentary resumption in 1687 when James II sent Lord Castlemaine to Rome, but with the fall of the House of Stuart in 1688, and the advent of Protestant Constitutional Monarchy, it was clear that the resumption was only temporary.
8 Albion, Charles I, xi.
9 Graham, Vatican Diplomacy, p. 69.
10 ‘Nobody can be so very squeamish as to refuse Benefits (nothing else will ever be offered by His Holiness) because they come from the Pope. He would be an Admiral of wonderful Theological Talents, but not of quite such splendid Military Qualities, who should scruple the receipt of those Indulgences called Munitions de Guerre et de Bouche from a Prince Prelate that believed in Purgatory. I should not think a great deal of a statesman at home, who from a disposition to Polemick Divinity, was so indifferently qualified for the conduct of any other kind of warfare,’ Correspondence of Edmund Burke and William Windham, ed. Gilson, J. P. (Cambridge, 1910), p. 63 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Burke, Correspondence).
11 Burke, Correspondence, p. 64. Sir John Coxe Hippesley, M.P. for Somerset, was Pitt's secret agent in Rome from 1792–96. He served as official go-between in several transactions with Rome, including the above-mentioned procurement of naval supplies. An enthusiastic proponent of direct relations with Rome, Windham described him to Pitt as ‘a man proper, in various respects, to serve as a vehicle for any communication that might be intended’. (Windham to Pitt, 22 October 1793). However, Hippesley's enthusiasm did not meet with the full approval of Grenville who wrote to Portland that ‘although he had been active and useful in a sort of volunteer negotiation… has, I think, proceeded a little further than was necessary (Grenville to Portland, 26 January 1795, His. MSS., Com., Dropmore Ps., 3, p. 145).
12 Somerset, H. V. F., ‘Edmund Burke, England, and the Papacy’, in The Dublin Review, 202(1938), p. 142.Google Scholar The author includes this quotation in his text, but the footnote only indicatesthat it is from the early biography of Burke by Bertram Newman.
13 Burke continues, ‘He is indeed a Prelate whose dignity as a prince takes nothing from his humanity as a priest, and whose mild condescension as a Christian bishop, far from impairing in him, exalts the awful and imposing authority of the secular sovereignty’. Burke, Correspondence, p. 64.
14 Windham to Lord Grenville, 1 January 1795, The Windham Papers, 1, p. 162.
15 Burke to Hippesley, 3 October 1791, Burke, Correspondence, p. 65. The letter goes on to add, ‘Without this authority any marks of attention paid to him would be only personal. It is not impossible, too, but that even those marks of attention paid to him should be the less important and the less worthy of him on account of a publick character. When that character is owned it certainly adds to personal consideration: but when it is not recognised, it produces a contrary effect, and as certainly detracts something from what would be otherwise due to the merits of the individual.’
16 Robert, Noakes, ‘Cardinal Erskine's Mission, 1793–1801’, in The Dublin Review, 204 (1939), p. 342 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Noakes, ‘Erskine’). The account given here of Erskine's mission is drawnexclusively from this article and the relevant section of Gaselee's article on Britain's relationswith the Holy See already referred to.
17 Noakes, ‘Erskine’, p. 345.
18 Ibid., p. 352.
19 Graham, Vatican Diplomacy, p. 43.
20 ‘Upon his return to possession of the Papal states, Pius VII found himself in the situation where the axiom applied, turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur, and it was in this manner that agents accredited by non-Catholic powers came to be recognised in the Patrimony of the Church’. Memorie del Cardinale Ercole Consalvi, ed. Mario, di Corneliano, (Rome, 1950), p. 185 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Consalvi, Memorie).
21 ‘In any case, the times had changed too much for the Pope to refuse to admit them withoutexposing religion to considerable harm in the schismatic and heretical countries. For thisreason and for others about which I should not speak, it was thought opportune to soften theseverity of the former procedure.’ Consalvi, Memorie, p. 185.
22 ‘We have just witnessed a new little minister slide in here without making any fuss. … The Secretary of State has thus far said nothing. The victory of M. von Humboldt is completeand we should not be surprised to find an English minister here before long.’ Artaud, de Montor, Histoire du Pape Pie VII (Paris, 1836), 2, p. 54.Google Scholar
23 Graham, Vatican Diplomacy, p. 58.
24 Dominique, de Pradt, Du Congres de Vienne (Paris, 1815), 2, pp. 156–8.Google Scholar This quotation also appears in Graham, Vatican Diplomacy, p. 55 (italics are my own).
25 Roger, Aubert, ‘The Catholic Church after the Congress of Vienna’, in Handbuch derKirchengeschichte, ed. H. Jedin (Freiburg, 1973), VI/1, p. 107 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Aubert, Handbuch).
26 Aubert, Handbuch, p. 107.
27 Ibid., p. 108.
28 Pope Pius VII to the Prince Regent, 1 April 1814. F.O. 881/65, no. 1.
29 Memorandum of the Earl of Liverpool, 3 July 1814. F.O. 881/65, no. 2.
30 Pope Pius VII to the Prince Regent, 1 April, 3 May, 20 May, 20 May 1814. Cardinal Consalvi to Viscount Castlereagh, 23 June 1814. F.O. 881/65, nos. 1–6.
31 Viscount Castlereagh to Cardinal Consalvi, 9 July 1814. F.O. 881/65, no. 7.
32 Cardinal, Wiseman, Recollections of the Last Four Popes and of Rome in Their Times (London, 1859), p. 73 Google Scholar (Hereafter: Wiseman, Recollections).
33 The Papal Allocution is quoted in Wiseman, Recollections, pp. 72–73.
34 Edward Cooke to Viscount Castlereagh, 18 March 1815. F.O. 881/65, no. 8.
35 ‘This mark of friendship was repeated when the Cavalier Canova, raised on the occasion to the title of Marquis of Ischia, returned to Rome, with the works of art restored from the Louvre. It is agreeable to relate, that the heavy expense of their removal from Paris to Rome was defrayed entirely by our Government; and this act of graceful generosity was enhanced by the letter from the Prince, of which Canova was bearer, as he was of letters from Lord Castlereagh to the Pope, and to the Secretary of State.’ Wiseman, Recollections, p. 90.
36 Pope Pius VII to Viscount Castlereagh, 26 October 1815. F.O. 881/65, no. 9. Pope PiusVII to the Prince Regent, 26 October 1815. F.O. 881/65, no. 10.
37 The Prince Regent to Pope Pius VII, 4 December 1815. F.O. 881/65, no. 11.
38 ‘The letter which your Royal Highness has been pleased to write to us in reply to ours, affords us so great a satisfaction that we want expressions for giving utterance to what we feel. We know how to appreciate that event, and have no hesitation in declaring that we consider it as extremely happy and honourable to our Pontificate. We anxiously look forward to the moment when the relations of good understanding and intimate amity with your Royal Court and the great and generous English nation, shall be established upon an uninterrupted and firm footing. Our desires anticipate the day on which we shall have the happiness of seeing the Representative of your Royal Highness among those of foreign nations residing with us, as we have been led to hope, and when our own shall have the honour of being admitted to the presence of your Royal Highness. As our advanced age gives us no very distant prospect of the termination of our days, we could wish the remainder of them might be crowned with an event so much desired by us, no less than by our people, namely that of the re-establishment, in its most extensive sense possible, of the most amicable relations between England and the Holy See.’ Pope Pius VII to the Prince Regent, 19 February 1816. F.O. 881/65, no. 12.
39 ‘Animé du plus vif désir de voir achever entièrement l'union la plus intime avec le Gouvernement et la nation Anglaise, aux quels tant de devoirs nous attachent, non moins que le penchant du coeur, et me flattant toujours du doux espoir d'avoir le bonheur de compter un Ministre Anglais parmi ceux des autres nations qui se trouvent a Rome; je prie aussi en mon particulier, votre Excellence de croire qu'elle n'a pas un serviteur plus fidèle ni un ami plus dévoué que moi; et je lui réitère les offres les plus empressés de mes services, non moins pour sa personne que pour tous ceux aux quels elle porte de l'intérêt.’ Cardinal Consalvi to Viscount Castlereagh, 4 December 1816. F.O. 881/65. Consalvi repeatedly called for an exchange of ministers, and on 17 May 1817 we find a virtual repetition of this invitation, cf. F.O. 45/661.
40 Viscount Castlereagh to Cardinal Consalvi, 23 January 1817. F.O. 881/65.
41 Commission of Mr Parke, as British Consul to the Roman states, 10 November 1816. F.O. 881/65, no. 46. Appendix 2.
42 Wiseman, Recollections, p. 91.
43 Viscount Castlereagh to Cardinal Consalvi, 30 April 1817. F.O. 881/65.
44 Cardinal Consalvi to Viscount Castlereagh, 6 October 1817. F.O. 881/65.
45 Pope Pius VII to King George IV, 18 March 1820. F.O. 881/65.
46 Smith, ‘Diplomatic Relations’, p. 375.
47 Cardinal Consalvi to Viscount Castlereagh, 2 August 1820. F.O. 881/65.
48 Viscount Castlereagh to Cardinal Consalvi, 26 August 1820. F.O. 881/65.
49 College of Cardinals to King George IV, 21 August 1823. F.O. 881/65.
50 Pope Leo XII to King George IV, 28 September 1823. F.O. 881/65.
51 Cardinal Somaglia to Mr Canning, 28 September 1823. F.O. 881/65.
52 ‘Consalvi seems a little hurt and surprised that the communication … should have received no answer… —and yet there was precedent, you see, for what they did, and precedent afforded by England.’ Extract of a Private Letter to Mr Planta, Rome, 2 October 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 29.
53 ‘There are six precedents of Royal answers to letters from the Pope; but no correspondence appears to have originated with His Majesty: and with the late King, none whatever. The 1st answer was in 1815. The King (then Prince Regent) acknowledged a letter of thanks from the Pope, for the restitution of pictures and statues taken from Rome by Buonaparte. 2. In 1816, His Royal Highness acknowledged the receipt of a letter from the Pope, notifying the arrival of works of art at Civita Vecchia, and requesting His Royal Highness's acceptance of a present of two works of rosso antico. 3. In 1817, the Prince Regent thanked the Pope, for his congratulations on His Royal Highness's escape from the outrage committed on His Royal Highness's person in the Park. 4. In the same year the Prince thanked the Pope for having sent to His Royal Highness the Stuart Papers. 5. In 1818, His Royal Highness acknowledged the Pope's letter of condolence on the death of the Princess Charlotte. 6. And in 1820, the King wrote a letter of acknowledgement for the Pope's congratulations on his accession to the throne. As no copy of the present letter from the Pope appears to have been sent, I am unable to prepare an answer till its return from the King. But I have made the draft of one from Mr Canning to the Cardinal Secretary of State, inclosing an answer from the King, in the event of its being thought right to send one.’ Foreign Office Memorandum, October 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 30.
54 ‘Lord Castlereagh was in constant correspondence with Cardinal Consalvi;—and Mr Canning wrote a very obliging letter on becoming Minister for Foreign Affairs.’ F.O. 881/65, no. 29.
55 Mr Planta to the Law Officers, Confidential, Foreign Office, 28 October 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 31.
56 ‘In compliance with your request we have carefully perused and considered the letters above referred to, and beg leave to state that by the Statute 5th Elizabeth, Cap. 1–2, advisingly and wittingly to attribute by any speech, open deed or act, any manner of jurisdiction, authority, or pre-eminence to the See of Rome, or to any Bishop of the said See within this realm, subjects a party for the first offence to the penalties of praemunire. And as the Pope, by virtue of his office, claims as we conceive authority, jurisdiction, and pre-eminence over the whole Christian Church, and certainly over the Catholic Church of this realm; and as by the letters his elevation to the supreme pontificate is in terms announced which we apprehend would be construed as importing such a claim, we are of opinion that any answer to these letters which might be interpreted into an implied recognition of such a claim might be considered as bringing the party, being a subject, writing or advising it, within the operation of the above statute. It is, we think, worthy of remark, that the Legislature by carefully adopting the title of ‘Bishop of Rome’, instead of that of ‘Pope’, in various Acts passed since the Reformation, seems anxiously to have avoided any such implied recognition. We think further that the reference made in the Pope's letter to the Catholic Church in His Majesty's dominions, and the recommendation of the weal of that Church to His Majesty, render caution upon this occasion particularly necessary.’ The Law Officers to Mr Canning, Lincoln's Inn, 5 November 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 32.
57 ‘I have the honour to acquaint you that I have made a very careful search among the documents in this office from 1558, when Sir Edward Karne was Ambassador at Rome, to 1775 inclusive; but cannot discover the least trace of any direct official communication between the British and Papal Governments, during the whole of that period, except in the year 1687, when King James II appointed Lord Castlemaine to be his Ambassador at the Court of Rome.’ The Deputy Keeper of State Papers to Mr Planta, State Papers Office, Great George Street, 26 November 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 36.
58 Mr Canning to Lord Chancellor Eldon, Private, Foreign Office, 20 November 1823. F.O. 881/65, no. 33.
59 Answer to Lord Chancellor Eldon. F.O. 881/65, no. 33.
80 Writing to Cardinal Consalvi on 25 November 1823 to explain that there was no discourtesy intended by the lack of reply on the part of the Government, Canning commented: ‘Je prends le parti, après de mûres réflexions, d'écrire à M. de Somaglia comme d'individu à individu.…’ And addressing Cardinal Somaglia on the same day: ‘Quoique les lois de ce pays ne me permettent pas de répondre officiellement à la lettre que votre Eminence m'a fait l'honneur de m'adresser le 28 Septembre dernier…. F.O. 881/65, no. 34–35.
61 Harold, Temperley, ‘George Canning, the Catholics and the Holy See’, in The Dublin Review, 193 (1933), p. 10.Google Scholar
62 Writing to Lord Palmerston in 1848 when the issue of accrediting a diplomatic agent to Rome had once again been raised, Burghersh, now Westmorland, informed the Foreign Secretary of his former mission. ‘I only now refer to it as relating to a subject upon which I was instructed by Mr Canning to obtain information, and upon which (although my letter is a private one) still I made this official report, and because it may be of use to you as showing what, at the period, it was written, were the opinions of the Pope and the leading men who were his ministers and advisers.’ Westmorland to Palmerston, Private, Borlin, 21 February 1848. F.O. 64/285; cited also by Harold, Temperley, ‘George Canning, the Catholics and the Holy See’, in The Dublin Review, 193 (1933), p. 11.Google Scholar
63 ‘From my frequent opportunities of conversing with the Cardinal and influential persons in the Court of Rome, I have obtained information which, under the present circumstances, may not be uninteresting for you to be acquainted with.
The Court of Rome see, with dissatisfaction, the unruly spirit at various times shown even against itself by the Catholic Clergy of Ireland: it would be anxious to reduce it to more orderly conduct, both as regards the British Government and its own authority: to do this it would receive with gratitude any proposition for the payment of that Church, conceding in return a total renunciation of all pretention to the ancient establishment that belonged to it; and granting to the Government a power in the election of bishops and other of the Church dignitaries, such as has been secured to other Protestant Governments, These arrangements, when completed would be promulgated by a Bull which would put down all opposition.
The Court of Rome believe that such a settlement of a difficult question must be of service to the British Government; it would lead to a connection between it and the Catholic Clergy, which, by degrees, would bring about a feeling of dependence which the Court of Rome is far from objecting to: it would lead the Catholic priest to look to the approbation of the Government as a means of advancement, and the Court of Rome would encourage this feeling.
The persons whose sentiments I am now giving conceive that to have the whole body of the clergy of five or six millions of people totally separated, in interest, and without connection with, or controul from the Ruling Power, must be calculated to render the people under the spiritual charge of this powerful Body bad subjects, and therefore in the desire of healing wounds which have so long existed, the Court of Rome would anxiously lend a hand to bring about a better state of things, and in so doing it conceives it would be acting in its own interests.
To do this, if the statute restricting direct communication with the Holy See was taken away, it would be most happy to enter into any such arrangements as with strict compliance with its religious tenets, yet with an anxious desire to contribute to the tranquillity and prosperity of the British nation, it should be thought advisable to require from it.…’ Burghersh to Canning, 2 April 1825. F.O. 79/44.
64 The Irish were strenuously opposed to concession of the type mentioned by Burghersh. The veto power over episcopal appointments was never officially granted, even though the selection of bishops by Rome generally conformed to the wishes of the British Government. Proposals for the state payment of the clergy were continually rejected by both the clergy and laity as an attempt to destroy the Church in Ireland. Motivated by fears of a dominating British influence in Rome, Irish Catholics preferred not to see diplomatic relations established. Cf. John F. Broderick, ‘The Holy See and the Irish Movement for the Repeal of Union with England, 1829–47’, in Analecta Gregoriana, 56 (1951), pp. 69–75.
65 The Foreign Office correspondence with Tuscany provides us with numerous examples of Burghersh's dealings with the Papal Government. Cf. F.O. 79/45–47; F.O. 881/65.
66 Lord Clanricarde to the Law Officers, 30 August 1826. F.O. 881/65, no. 37.
67 Canning to Burghersh, 20 April 1826. F.O. 881/65. It is very clear, however, that Burghersh paid little heed to Canning's admonitions, for he continued to send reports of his communications with the Papal Government to the Foreign Secretary. On the public level, the Foreign Secretary continued to articulate the old line. In a Memorandum written at the end of August 1826, Canning states: ‘The wisdom of our ancestors having provided by wholesome laws, that any intercourse with the Court of Rome shall be subject to the penalties of praemunire (this must be stated more accurately, after the report of the Attorney and Solicitor-General which I have directed to be obtained on Lord Burghersh's correspondence with the Cardinals). I respect the law too much to think of holding such forbidden communication.’ F.O. 881/65, no. 38.
68 Aberdeen to Burghersh, 28 February 1829. F.O. 79/53. This is but one of a number of occasions on which the British Minister to Tuscany is ordered ‘to repair to Rome’.
69 Burghersh to Aberdeen, 23 April 1829. F.O. 79/53. In their reports of interviews with the Cardinal Secretary of State or with the Pope, the English envoys who happen to find themselves in Rome repeatedly state that the Vatican is more than willing to do all in its power to strengthen the relations of harmony ‘which for so long a period has existed between the governments of England and Rome’.
70 Cardinal Albani to the Earl of Aberdeen, 31 March 1829. F.O. 881/65, no. 39–40.
71 ‘I have received a letter from Cardinal Albani, inclosing one addressed to His Majesty from Pope Pius VIII. Your Excellency is aware that the laws of this country prohibit me from answering officially the letter of the Cardinal Secretary of State, as well as from laying before the King any draft of an answer to that which has been addressed to His Majesty.
I regret that this necessity should lead to any apparent neglect or want of respect on my part, and it is by means of Your Excellency's kindness that I hope to rectify this appearance. Perhaps through your intervention, the Hanoverian minister at Rome may be instructed to explain the cause of this silence, which is so far from having its origin in any disrespect, that it has given me very sincere pleasure to learn that a prelate so highly distinguished should have been placed in a situation calculated for the display of great virtues, and in which they may be so extensively beneficial….’ Aberdeen to Count Munster, 20 April 1829. F.O. 8881/65, no. 41.
72 Gregory XVI did write to the King of Hanover to announce his elevation to the Papal throne. He told Sir Brook Taylor that ‘he had received a gracious letter from His Majesty a few days since as King of Hanover, and was aware that he had none to expect from His Majesty as King of Great Britain’. Brook Taylor to Palmerston, 20 April 1831. F.O. 43/24.
73 Francesco Capaccini (1784–1845) was ordained to the priesthood in 1807. He directed the astronomical observatory at Naples from 1811 to 1815, and then became secretary to Cardinal Consalvi, Secretary of State. According to a note of Baron Bunsen (A Memoir of Baron Bunsen, ed. Frances Baroness Bunsen, [1869], 1, p. 247). Capaccini accompanied Consalvi toLondon in 1814, but according to Dizzionario Ecclesiastico, 37, p. 27, he was recommended to Consalvi only in 1815. Capaccini himself does not mention having been with Consalvi in 1814. In 1824, he was made sub-secretary of Briefs, and in 1827 he assisted Cardinal Cappellari, later Gregory XVI, to conclude the concordat with the Low Countries. He then represented the Holy See at the Hague, and in 1829 was raised to the rank of Internuncio. Capaccini was in England ‘unofficially’ from October 1830 to September 1831, and on returning to Rome in the same year he became sub-Secretary of State. Between 1837 and 1844, he served on several diplomatic missions to Vienna, Berlin, The Hague, and Lisbon. He was named cardinal in petto in July 1844, and was proclaimed a cardinal a few months before his death. Broderick, Cf. John F., ‘The Holy See and the Irish Movement for the Repeal of Union withEngland, 1829–1847’, in Analecta Gregoriana, 56 (1951), p. 76.Google Scholar