The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-21 00:00:00

pardon him if he informed them of the nature of the office
and functions Dr. Wiseman came here to exercise, and
showed them that from the earliest periods of our history it
had been contrary to the constitution and common law of the
country that a legate of the Pope, and especial a cardinal,
should come into this country without the leave of the So-
vereign, and without an oath taken that he would attempt
nothing against the realm and liberties of the people. If he
could prove this, as he thought he could, he should have con-
tributed his mite to a better understanding of the question,
and to relieve the measures that were required to repel this
aggre,sion front th., invidious imputation of religious per-
secution.—(Hear, hear.) He found that there was a meet-
ing of the clergy of the Established Church a few days
ago at Sion College, at which Dr. M•Caul, quoting from
a recognised authority of the Catholic Church, stated that
the order of cardinals was literally a part of the Papacy
and constitution—the privy council, which was the body
corporate of the Pope, and then gave an account of how
the office and power of the cardinal was wielded throughout.
From that account it appeared that the office of cardinal,
when the Pope assumed the temporal attributes of the Em-
peror, was converted into that of privy councillor, and that
the cardinals ought not to be absent from the Papal
Court except by reason of being sent out as legates. Car-
dinal Wiseman, then, could only be here as a legate. Van
Espin, whose works were recognised at Maynooth, also said
that whatever might be the case with other legates, cardin,l
legates were called legates d latere, because they a era taken
f orn the aide of the Pope. He believed that Dr. Wiseman
had been asked whether he bad taken the oa.ll of privy
councillor, and that his answer was, that he had not. But
he bad taken the oath of archbishop in full, and that would
be an excuse fsr not taking the oath of privy councillor;
but he (Mr. Newdegate) could find no possible authority
for the omission. However, the oath of archbishop eas
strictly the oath of privy councillor, binding the party to
discharge temporal functions, and with this remarkable
addition, that for the recovery of such rights and property
as had been alienated from the Romish Church
he would do his utmost. He wanted to show that
Cardinal Wiseman, by his own act as cardinal priest, ad-
verted to that very function of labouring to the utmost for
the recovery of the goods of the Church. It was a very long
time since there bad been a cardinal legate in England, and
for this good reason, that it was contrary to the ancient
statute law of this realm that those temporal officers of a
fo-eign potentate should reside among Even Cardinal
Beaufort, the brother of Henry VI., had found it necessary
to have a special statute enacted in his favour before he
could reside in England as cardinal legate ; Cardinal Wol.ey
was appointed legate at the express instance of Henry
VII.; and Ca dinal Pole, after he had been compelled to
leave England because he resisted Henry VIII.'s proceed-
ings with the tempcealities of the Church, was ap-
pointed legate in England, not upon the motion of the
Pope, but at the desire of Queen Mary. In the time of
Elizabeth, the cardinal whom the reigning Pope had sent
to England as nuncio received, in the Netherlands, whence
he had sent to request permission to enter England, a
prohibition from entering the realm, on the distinct ground
that the ancient statutes of the realm declared that no

legate from the Papal Court might reside in England.
Happy would it have been for this country had the advisers
of the present Queen emulated the firmness of those of Queen
Elizabeth. Had but the Noble Lord opposite acted up to
the professions of his letter, he would by this time have been
at the head of one of the most powerful Governments ever
known in this country, and the opposition in Parliament
would have been extinguished altogether, instead of occupy-
ing the position they had now attained. The Noble Lord
had described the manner in which various foreign countries
had guarded against Papal aggression. Of these Prussia was
the country in which the latest attempt of the kind had been
male. In 1829 Cardinal A bani was appointed by the Pope
Roman Catholic Bishop of Konigsberg. Upon his re-
fusal to take the oath cif allegiance to the Prussian Crown
be was, by order of the Government, at once conducted to
the frontier, under an escort, and sent home. go again, in
1837, when the Archbishop of Cologne had committed vari-
ous acts inconsistent with the civil rale of Prussia, he
was at once placed under surveillance, until he should be re-
moved by the Pope. But here, in Engl,nd, a cardinal legate
was allowed at full liberty to machinate, at the head of an
organized conspiracy of priests, agitating the whole country,
and exciting a struggle painful to contemplate. The .Nobls
Lord said he was anxious to prevent synodical action ; all he
need to do was to prevent the presence hare of any legate
a /atere, for, unless by such an official, no synod could be ca-
nonically summoned, and without his presidency the pro-
ceedings of no synod were valid. Cardinal Wiseman had
stated that the late aggression was based upon four conside-
rations— , that previous to 1847 the Catholics were still un-
der the pressure of the penal law, and enjoyed no liberty of
conscience; 2, that the religious orders had previously no
houses in England; 3, that previous to that period there was
nothing approaching parochial divisions; and 4, that the in-
crease of their chapels and ministers had induced the aggres-
sion. After briefly alluding to the Bel which had been in-
troduced by the Hon. Member for Youghal an 1847, for regu-
lating charitable Roman Catholic bequests, which had been
commented upon and objected to by the Law Committee of
the Association of St. Thomas of Canterbury, because it
made Roman Catholic bishops liable to be examined before
a lay tribunal, and which, being opposed by all the Roman
Catholic Members of Parliament on similar grounds, was
subsequently abandoned, the Honourable Member pro-
ceeded to observe, that Cardinal Wiseman relied upon the
religious orders as the instruments of his tyranny. Now,
let the House look at the increase of these establish-
ments within the last few years, and he had an especial
object in directing attention to this portion of the sub-
ject. In 1847 there were 3t conveats in this country; in
1848 there were 38, and in 18 .1 they had increased to 53.
He did not know that there was anything so pe •uliarly at-
tractive about these establishments in the eyes of Protestants
that they should rejoice at this increase, but he rather
thought that that House would not show a due regard to the
liberty of the subjects of this country if they did not pees
some law for the inspection f f those places. (Loud cries of
"Hear, hear.") It could not be ut of the recollection of
the house that the Hon. Baronet the Sletnber for the Uni-
versity of Oxford (Sir R. H. Inglis) had a few nights since
presented a petition from the stepfather of a young lady
who was now immured in one of those prisons. Since
that occasion the Honourable Member for üblin had risen
in his place and stated that Miss Talbot was not in
that place as a postulant.— (" Hear, hear," from Mr.
Fagan.) The Hon. Member said "Hear, bear." Ile
(Sir. Newdegate) had the authority of Mr. Craven Berkeley
for stating that he had been distinctly informed by Miss
Jerningham, who was the head of that religious house, that,
Miss Talbot was retained there as a postulant.—(" No, no,'
from Mr. Fagan.) Well; he had the authority of Miss
Jerningham, or Mrs. Jerningham, or Mother Jerningham,
for in king that statement, and She was the head of that
establi-hment, and ought to know. (Hear.) He must say.
that when he listened to that petition t a could not help in-
quiring what was the Lord Chancellor about ?—(Hear, hear. )
t'Wh
eeirc
nheiasrwesatrrdesl against the will of
ems,ininorcs,ontovebne
convents, secluded from the world?
It appeared that the powers of that high functionary
t
be strangely crippled if such things were allowed with im-
punity, Let the House consider girl
the case of a young
separated from the nearest and tenderest ties which nature
had interwoven with the best feelings of mankind, and
plunged into the cold seclusion
i
of that place of imprison-
men , while the keeper of the Queen's conscience, the highest
functionary functionary of the land, her legal father, sat impotently
from
that
by
and saw every in,idious art made use of to wring
unhappy girl
absurd to talk of reli-
giousshe belonged. (Hear, hear.) It was
I
things existed. n his own neigh.
liberty while such
bourhood there were convents—too m yan . From one of
• rs ago a nun escaped. Unfortunately, she
them some ea
was taken back. What did they Arnow further of that
woman? Nothing; except that within a week afterwards
15 cwt. of iron stanchions were put up to barricade the win-
dows, and to convert the place into a perfect prison.—(Hear,
hear.) Women entered there. They died. There was no
account of their illness or their death. No coroner's in-
quest was held. They were utterly shut out from light
and life, and, he would add, from the protection of the law,
He did heartily trust, that whatever the opposition might be
that House would insist upon an enactment for looking into
transactions which were thus carefully hidden from the
public eye.—(Hear, bear.) Then he came next to the
monasteries. In 1847 there were 8 in England, in 1848
there were 11, and in 1851 they had increased to 17. He
wanted to know why the Noble Lord, as he was about to
enact a statute to give effect to some of the clauses of the
Act of 1829, had totally omitted all the clauses with refer-
ence to these regular orders. Ile asserted that we ha • a
right to claim the registration and surveillance which the
Act of 1829 imposed, and he could not understand why.
when the Noble Load had had four months to consider what
was to be done, he had so totally forgotten those provisions
of an Act to which he was for ever expressing his attach-
ment. He had seen it stated that there had been of late a
great decrease of the order of Jesuits, particularly in this
town. Now, he had no great admiration of that order, bk.t
he rather entertained the opinion which had been so ably ex-
pressed in a most manly and straightforward speech bytt_ the
Hon. Member for Tamworth— (Hear, hear)--and it must 1),..
remembered that that Hon. Baronet spoke with Or
ledge of a witness—that he had seen their workingion. r"
the thirds
public, in a free country with a populationne
He
t he bad
Protestants and one-third Roman Catholics, a_
Hear, hear.) He
seen the happy results of Jesuit intrigue.—
to
listen to that
( Mr. Newdegate) warned the Noble
Lord
this informstion—
opinion, and he begged also to tender him.Lodon until Cardinal
that there we: e n Jesuit missions inthat he recommended
Wiseman became vicar-apostolic;
; and that they had
them and sanctioned their functione
'sided over this district.
en 'rmously increased since he had prea_,
.op I that the increase of
Cardinal Wiseman stated,
in his - enforce the decrees of his
that order was to enable him (s.
tiooked to those whom in-
master. If so, it was time we
The fact was that the regular
tended to be his instruments.
especially the Jesuits, were
orders of the Church of Romses,ion. They vr• re the head and
the very teeth of this aggraetoss, and the House might rely
front—the i riacipal hid been without their share in
upon it, that they ha" in Europe.—( Hear, hear.) Their
all the late disturbances s
polity
within themselves, which set
princples were those of
nation to them as subjects. To them
aside the right of anaTika which heir application to the people,
all institutions weerebeing could best serve their pur-
the only difference, a
monarchy which they could not con-
pose. If the,y sear
d laboured like slaves that they might
trot, that r
was just the same with' a republic. History
overturn That they would not stop at any crime, from
showed ,avie murder, to serve their puose. There
parricide to •
et increase of thia order, and for that reason
then, aidr
was;then, the Protestant subjects of her Majesty bad a
again 11". expect that some account should be taken of these
right to f
aggression.—(Hear.) With reference to this
agents Jesuits, the Noble Lord
der of at the head of Foreign
or
Agsira in a dispatch dated November 16, 1847, which had
been laid
upon the table of the House, had said, "The
Society of Jesuits must be looked at both in a religious
and in a political point of view. In its religious cha-
racter it is a society avowedly established to make war
upon the Protestant religion. What wonder, then, that in
a small country like Switzerland, where two-thirds of the
people are Protestants, the introduction of such a society
should give rise to dissensions between Catholic and Pro-
testant, and should be viewed with aversion by the majority
of the nation? In its ecclesiastical character the Society of
Jesuits is known to be exclusive and encroaching. Can it
be surprising, then that in Switzerland, as in other countries,
a great portion even of the Catholic population should look
upon the Jesuits with jealousy and dislike?" Those were
the sentiments of the Noble Lord at the head of Foreign
Affairs in reference to the Jesuits in Switzerland, and he
(Mr. Newdegate) asked whether they were not equally ap-
plicable to this country?— (Hear, hear.) He wished to ask
whether the Noble Lord intended to permit the residence
and accredited action in this country of a person intrusted,
as Cardinal Wiseman was, with full legatine powers? The
powers of a legate were to manage all the affairs—civil, eco-
nomical, and political—of the nation committed to his
charge. I was true no legate could manage or control the
affairs of this country, but that he might and would interfere
with them there could be no doubt.—(Hear, hear.) Ile
spoke the voice of the Protestants of England, and he spoke
from communications made to him by peaceful and orderly
men, when he told the Noble Lord that they were content
to b+ protected from these aggressions by law, but that if
they were not protected by law, they would take the matter
into their own hands.—(Hear, and a cry of " Oh.")
Mr. KNOX (Dungannon) wished to express his indigna-
tion and that of the people of
Ulster at the conduct of the