The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-21 00:00:00

THE SUN,

WHAT IS MEAT T BY THE
QUEEN'S SUPREMACY.

-;;,~_

7'O THE EDITOR OF THE SUN:
IR,—As the period approaches when the agitatien
consequent on the movement of the puppet of the
Pr( nal army in Rome, temporarily slackened thr( uch
the circumstance of every body having done all the
present hour permitted, must be taken up again with
a view to final action, it is time to fulfil the engage-
ment to examine into the practical meaning of what
is called the Queen's Supremacy.
And here the fact will be found to be, that this
like many other compendious phrases in that people's
mouth, though it is easy to find things it does not
mean and emu, to which it wculd be wrongfully
applied, yet means something and of much import-
ance, and will continue to mean it after the cavillers
have blown their Matt, with whatever preliminary
flourishes that operation may be heralded.
For example, what might be represented as more
silly and unmeaning, than the popular phrase that
" an Englishman's house is his castle ;" when it is
notorious that for the slightest scrap of a felony,
he will be extracted from his castle with a paper
cork-screw, and his body produced before any in
the Cotnini,sion of the Peace who may have been
moved to order it? Or take that other supreme folly,
which says that " for every wrong the law provides a
remedy ;" when every body knows that there are many
wrongs for which the law provides nothing, and that
unless it means to claim infallibility, it must in a cer-
tain average number of cases be the cause of wrong
itself. Or the other piece of special childishness, that
" the Crown is the fountain of honour ;" when it is pal-
pable to the meanest student of history, that there
have been those whom the Crown has tried to honour
end could not, and those who have been honoured
precisely because the Crown did its utmost to dis-
honour them.
In all these the fallacy is the feeble one, of pur-
posely applying the phrase to the wrong thing.
When an Englishman's house is called his castle, it
means that he is not to be taken out of it except for
causes which the consent of the community has de-
fined as adequate ; a privilege the value of which is
best known by its absence. When the law says for
every wrong it provides a remedy, the clear and ra-
tional intention is to avow, that' it provides remedy
to the fullest extent compatible with the degree of
perfection to which legislators shall have carried it; and
when the Crown is called the fountain of honour, all
temperate and well-meaning men know the thing
announced to be, that the community, acting through
its Legislature, has determined that the Crown is
the fitting location for the distribution of such ho
norary recompenses as the good of the State may
demand. No man, except wilfully, has ever blun-
dered on these points. There was a thing meant,
and a thing that was not meant ; and the art of going
a rong was in putting one of these for the other.
So when our ancestors insisted on what they
called the Queen's Supremacy, it did not mean that in
England the Queen was Pope, neither did it mean
that everybody in England held their religion by
the fiat of the Sovereign, and would be bound to
make their seed pass through the fire to Moloch if
ever a Sovereign should arise with whom that species
of devotion was in favour. Anybody stumbling upon
those meanings, went far beyond the limits which
can be assigned to involuntary error. Sane people
always knew it meant, that what religion should be
supported by the application of the public property,
was a thing to be settled by the community through
its legislature, and that the community so acting in
times past, fixed on a religion, and made the Sovereign,
through his Courts, the guardian and arbiter of all
rights and questions thence arising,—or, as weekly
rings from the pulpit in the Universities, "in all
causes, civil and ecclesiastical, supreme." It no more
needs a lawyer's technicalities, to know what is
meant by the Queen's being supreme in eccle-
siastical causes, than in civil. It may be
all quite wrong, and civil causes perhaps
ought to be settled by the " knowing man" whom
another " knowing man" is to fix upon, and ecclesi-
astical the same. But there can be no doubt of what
our forefathers intended and did ; though we have
possibly the right to transfer it all to the " knowing
men" when we can agree upon him.
But one inference, specially important at the pre-
sent moment, is that the settling of what the religion
was to be or continue, was not left to any cor-
poration, convocation, or council ecclesiastical. The
community chose a religion, and then said
to certain ecclesiastics, "If you are willing
to administer the religion we have chosen,
you may enter upon your office, not without consi-
derable dignities and emoluments annexed." But
nobody ever said to their, " Make us a religion,"
nor " Shape us our religion from time to time into
such form as shall be your pleasure, and we will take
it at your hands." If any appearance like the last
should ever arise, and grow into the serious, the re-
ply of the community wculd be, " You have abdi-
cated. Go forth, and we will take our chance for
finding men who will accept our terms and keep to
them."

The letter of the Bishop of Durham to the Arch-
deacon of Lindisfarne, appears to be considered as
the manifesto of the Government; and the business
of those who supported the wise and statesmanlike
letter of the. Premier, is to collect matter in aid
against the approaching time. The plan of campaign
of the opponents and their non-Catholic allies has
also been proclaimed by sound of trumpet. They are
to stand upon the indifference of the thing, and the
disgrace of retracing past steps. It the French
general at Rome had sent a division of grenadiers in-
stead of a cardinal, the indifference of the thing
might have been maintained in almost the same
terms. What ! risk the horrors of war and
the cessation of domestic and commercial
industry, to decide whether Dover or perhaps Wind-
sor castle, shall be occupied by a set of men in red
or a set in blue ; when, bating this, you would
hardly know one set from the other,—men who parade
at the same hours, dine by the like beat of drum, and
between whom, in the common converse of society,
you would hardly be able to find a difference. You
say their flag is tricolour. Is not your own tricolour
too ?if you doubt it, count the colours and Lee. And
so, to decide which of two configurations of bunting
shall be hoisted on a certain pole, you will go to war
with half the powers of Europe. The French general
says it is a revival of the Norman claim ; England is
a fief of France, through Normandy, and all liege
men are summoned, on pain of hell, to give their alle-
giance in the right place. How silly to care for that !
Either the people of England believe in the Norman
claim or they do not, and how is a flag on Windsor
castle to alter their belief? Detestable intole-
rance ! Wretched fanaticism of pseudo-nationality !
And these are the things for which we are to be
made to quarrel if vie will !!" It is known that
this is to be the line, taken by the counsel for the
smoothers-down.
And then, the going back; how contemptible !
The wolf in the Zoological Gardens had borne
his faculties so meekly, that the worthy Secretary de-
termined him to have merged into the canis
domesticus, and bit by bit emancipated him
accordingly. That there had ever been necessity for
a wolf-hunt, or that wolves had crunched the bones
nien'was a disagreeable
resorted to,—a piece of
reminiscence
small e ild rneont
toor grownoo ngain
the old world's history, which the universal march of
intellect had outgrown. But no sooner was the last
bar removed, than the flashing eye of the liberated
prisoner revealed what was passing in his soul, He
was the wolf, unchanged, unchangeable. Before
the House of Hanover or Stuart, Plantagenet or
Tudor, Harold or William, Alfred or Boadicea,
Wolfdom was, and is and is to be. Wolf was the
original lord, atad all that has been altered since, was
rebellion in politics and heresy in religion. Wolf was
rolling in, " like a compact solid globe," to resume his
ancient heritage, and all that is wolfish in Europe
was sending to congratulate him on his progress. If
under such circumstances the worthy Secretary was
implored not to think of so base a thing as a return to
durance, it is not difficult to surmise how little the
fear of inconsistency would hold his hand.
There is not the slightest exaggeration in this pa-
rallel. There may be individuals who honestly regret
what has been done in their name or by their leaders.
But acts must be judged of in the gross. The eyes
of everything barbarian in politics or in religion, are
upon England to ace how she will behave in such a
posture of affairs. As in the parallel stated, the only
course is quietly to go back. We have done wrong,
and must undo it; we know it now, though we did
not before. Not to any unnecessary extent in the way
of severity, but to so much as shall secure what our
forefathers handed over to us safe, and which we by
an overweening confidence have let down and endan-
gered. We have to a certain extent been made ridi-
culous, as all men are who trust and are deceived.
But there may be strength in us for all that; it does
not follow that we are incompetent to recover
what has been lost. Our forefathers left us
safe, and the brief, politic, and effective
course, is to take post again super vias antiquas, with
the exception of the penalties which were exaggerated
and contradictory to spirit, of the times. The
Acts of 5 and 13 Eliz, at this moment in exiq-
encP, except the penalth'v, which by a curious, com-
promise among parties, Base been taken away and the
rest left standing. The gun is without a lock ; all
that is wanted then iQ, that the lock be put on
again. What the honour of the country requires, is
the courage to reinstate these statutes in vigour by
the addition of moderate penalties. What is called a
Short Bill, might do it in fewer words than it takes
to talk about it.
One thing must also be kept eight of. As the in-
sult has been open and intended to attract the atten-
tion of Europe, there must be no rag left to flutter
which shall be construed into success. 'When the
Pope referred to the commencement of the good work
under the second James, why did he omit to notice
the services attempted by Guido. Fawkes under