FOLIA 175 Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis Studia Anglica IV (2014)

Monika Mazurek Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland UNDER WHICH LORD? THE CONFLICT BETWEEN OBEDIENCE AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE IN THE VICTORIAN RELIGIOUS NOVEL

Abstract One of the issues regularly cropping up in Protestant polemic writings was the issue of the legitimacy of the . Attacked both by Dissenters and Roman Catholics as an “Act-of-Parliament” church, it defended its position as the institution authorized to exercise story of a family conflict in order to depict such issues in a miniature form, with parents standingpastoral carefor theover state the soulsand /of orEnglishmen church authorities, and Englishwomen. while children Often thewere novelists their rebellious used the subjects. The conflict between obedience and freedom, or, to be more precise, obedience to authority and the freedom to decide to which authority one should submit, was the lynchpin liberty, were afraid that exercising it too freely could lead many susceptible souls astray, that is,around into thewhich Roman the discussion fold. The paper revolved. will Anglican attempt writers,to explain while the proudimplications of the traditional of this argument, British

Keyusing words: examples from selected Victorian novels.

Victorian literature, Catholicism, Tractarianism, obedience, legitimacy Throughout its history, the Anglican church had to contend with two conflicting forces in its midst, of those who preferred their national church to be Protestant and of those who insisted on its essential character being Catholic, or respectively of the Low Church and High Church party, as they were dubbed. One of the divisive conceptissues was of thethe Churchquestion of ofEngland the obedience as a Catholic to clerical church, authority with a resulting versus freedom emphasis of onprivate the reliancejudgement. on Inthe the authority Victorian of era, ecclesiastical under the influenceinstitutions of Tractarianism, in the matters the of conscience, experienced a marked revival. The purpose of this article is to discuss how Thethe conflictlink between between Roman obedience Catholicism and freedom and despotism was presented was ina staplethe Victorian of the ProtestantAnglo-Catholic polemic novel. writing since the Reformation. The reliance of the Roman on the magisterium of the Church, as well as its use of sometimes forceful means to ensure the fidelity of its subjects, easily explains this association. A number of political writers, including such key figures as Locke and Milton, [58] Monika Mazurek argued that while Protestantism had a natural affinity with personal and political liberty, Catholicism was inextricably connected with oppression and absolutism. of 1678 Account of the Growth of Popery, and Arbitrary Government in England, Thiswhich association made clear was that epitomized the relationship in the title between of Andrew these Marvell’s two things political was an pamphlet organic one.1

It seemed quite obvious that Protestantism with its emphasis on the individual conscience was naturally conducive to building political systems respecting individual liberty, while Catholicism was by its very nature authoritarian, as the examples of absolutist France Theand HistorySpain illustrated. of Emily Montague This observation was quite ofwidespread her protagonists and it did remarks: not take “the a thinkerRomish ofreligion Locke’s is stature best adapted to make to it;a despoticFrances Brooke in her popular novel (1769) makes one to a limited monarchy like ours.”2 government, the Presbyterian to a republican, and that of the church of England In this way, the opposition between British andProtestant other ideas liberty tied and to Catholicism foreign Catholic found their slavery direct was counterparts constructed: in “[a]rbitrary the rule of government, superstition, ignorance, corruption, exorbitance, foreign domination, that came to be associated with liberty.”3 law, knowledge, education, virtue, simplicity, free government, and other th ideas and 18th-century writers accepted as natural that the liberty they set out to defend couldTaking not be into granted account to thethe grave enemies political of this danger liberty. posed Milton by Catholicism, in his Areopagitica 17 arguing powerfully for intellectual liberty, had no intention of including Roman (1644), today hailed as the landmark in the history of the freedom of speech, while - Catholics in it. He wrote: “I mean not tolerated Popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpats all religions and civil supremacies, so4 For itself Milton should there be was ex notirpat,” question adding that benevolently since Rome itself“provided worked first hard that at allinhibiting charitable the freedomand compassionat of speech throughmeans be its us’d policy to win of imprimaturs, and regain the Roman weak Catholicsand the misled.” were not entitled to the free- dom of speech or conscience their spiritual superiors destroyed. The staunch Protestantism of Milton and other political writers of the 17th and 18th Catholicism, with its reliance on the authority of the Church, was open to the charges, centuries often made bythe Protestant right of private polemicists, judgement that Catholicsone of its put key their tenets. conscienc Roman- - pets. Catholic morality was an externalised one, without any basis in the spiritual es entirely in the hands of their confessors, effectively becoming their string-pup experience of the individual, but wholly dependent on the decisions of the Church, personified by its priests. In contrast, Protestants would enjoy the true freedom in English1 Political Thought”, Journal of the History of Ideas C. Fatovic, “The Anti-Catholic Roots of Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Freedom F. Brooke, The History of Emily Montague , 66(1) (2005), p. 45. 2 op. cit., p. 40. (London, 1777), vol. 2, p. 207. 43 J. Milton, Areopagitica C. Fatovic, , ed. John W. Hales (Oxford, 1894), p. 54. UNDER WHICH LORD? THE CONFLICT BETWEEN OBEDIENCE AND FREEDOM... [59] of conscience, because they had to confront their ethical and religious dilemmas on their own and maintain their relationship with God without any intermediar- - aies. Protestant Freedom country.became to be perceived as one of the defining features of British po litical and social life, which couldth notcentury have couldbeen achievedbe said to if bringBritain about had anot kind been of and libertyIn view were of the mutually above, thedependent. 19 While the argument about the inextricable linkconservative between backlashBritishness, against Protestantism the Whig and vision liberty of Britain, was still where current Protestantism and in use, some authors, many of whom were connected more or less closely with the Oxford

ArnoldMovement in his and Culture its heir, and Anglo-Catholicism, Anarchy came to view the idolization of liberty impulseas a virtue to underdo as allhe circumstanceslikes [...] always with regarded a certain [...] degree as something of distrust. primary Matthew or sacred,”5 seeing its embodiment in (1869)“that crowned wrote with Philistine, irony about Henry “Englishman’s the Eighth.”6 Arnold used the example of Murphy Riots, incited in the 1860s by an anti-Catholic the authorities refrained from stopping Murphy in the name of the freedom of lecturer of this name in various industrial cities of central and northern England; anarchy. He argued: speech, which was, in Arnold’s view, an inadequate response, paving the way to if we let this excess of the sturdy English middle-class, this conscientious Protestant

he would be capable, with his want of light – or, to use the language of the religious world,Dissenter, with so his strong, zeal without so self-reliant, knowledge so fully – of stirringpersuaded up strifein his whichown mind, neither have he his nor way, any one else could easily compose.7

Arnold’s distrust of the unbridled liberty of expression, granted indiscrimi- nately to everyone, carries with it the echoes of the dispute about liberty which was started in Arnold’s university days by the authors associated with the Oxford Low-Church,Movement. The or Dissentingauthors who Protestantism are of particular on the relevance one hand, to andthis thepaper Charybdis are those of Romanwho remained Catholicism in the on Church the other of England, hand. An trying example to navigate of such betweenan author the is ScyllaWilliam of Tract 90, but still remained of the opinion that the Church of England was essentially Catholic in its Sewell, who left the Oxford Movement afterHawkstone the publication of characters insist on using the term “Roman” or “Papist” instead of “Catholic” whennature. referring This is exemplifiedto the Roman in Catholichis novel Church, emphasizing (1846), where that it all is actuallythe positive the

Church of England which continues the true apostolic tradition of the primitive Church, and, even more importantly, continues the apostolic succession through its bishops.M. Arnold, The Culture question and of Anarchy the apostolic succession provided the fodder for much 5 Ibid., p. 224. (London, 1869), p. 60. 6 Ibid., p. 82. 7 [60] Monika Mazurek

Tracts offor Catholic/Protestant the Times polemic through8 The the reason centuries why apostolicand became succession very important was so in the 19th century for the Tractarian movement, with as many as six of of legitimacy. devotedThe continuous to this issue. line of ordination from one generation of bishops to another,important stretching to some Highback, Churchat least Anglicansin theory, allwas the the way fact to thatSt Peter it gave and them Jesus the himself, aura provedwere still to theAnglicans heirs of that the theirfirst apostleschurch was and notas such,a human still construct,retained their or “the authority, Act of Parliament Church,” as Catholics used to call it dismissively; on the contrary, they of the Romish Church. The ideal Catholic Church of England, as Sewell paints it, wouldeven if be it “Catholicismhad been sullied without in the Popery,” period as before he ascribes the Reformation all that is “noble by the and excesses good” to the former, while “the spirit of rule, of ambition, of self-will” to the latter. The protagonist of Hawkstone, 9 th-century plagues of industrialization, Chartism, the growtha young of Dissenting aristocrat churches, named Ernest infidelity Villiers, and arrives in the eponymous town, which is stricken by all the 19 are “self-will and lawlessness”10 and the fate of Hawkstone, as one of the characters predicts,soon mass foreshadows bankruptcies the caused fate of by the speculations; whole England the rootif it doescauses not of mendall these its evilsways.

Oxford,The ideal restores mode of the the local spiritual priory rebirth and sets envisaged up there by aSewell kind ofis portrayedAnglican monastic through Ernest’s actions: he, together with some of his trusted clergymen friends from ancommunity, ideal hamlet reinvigorates for his farm the labourers, life of the which parish is and essentially encourages a kind the of local Robert agriculture Herrick fantasyand commerce land: even when it means a financial disadvantage to him. He also sets up

[i]n the centre of the hamlet he [...] marked out the village green, with its tall elm trees thegrouped old women about it,sat its with cricket-ground, their spinning-wheels its maypole at [...] the He doors had encouragedof their houses, the villagers and the youngerto form a men little practised band of music all kinds which of athleticplayed in games. the summer11 evenings on the green, while

HawkstoneSewell’s is paternalist still in its utopia unreformed rules out and the impenitent presence of state, other he denominations depicts the meetingsthan of interdenominational of High Church charity variety: societies at the as beginning ridiculous, of not the sparing novel, whentheir

Anglican members, who are described as misguided or as equivocators whose unwillingness to castigate all opposing religious views as schismatic is tantamount to denying one’s own faith. Thanks to the activity of Villiers and his collaborators, in HawkstoneD. Fisher, Roman two new Catholic churches Saints and were Early built, Victorian the Literature old one was renovated and 8 W. Sewell, Hawkstone (Farnham, 2012), p. 13. 9 Ibid., p. 255. (New York, 1855), vol. 2, p. 41. 10 Ibid., p. 286. 11 UNDER WHICH LORD? THE CONFLICT BETWEEN OBEDIENCE AND FREEDOM... [61] enlarged, while “one after another the schismatic chapels became empty”12 and the recently arrived Romish priest fails in his mission. This is achieved, among others, by the new rector visiting local “schismatics” and threatening them with sameexcommunication, book the use which of excommunication is described in glowing by the Romanterms as Church asserting is condemned the God-given as aprivilege proof of ofits the intolerance. Church of13 England over the citizens of this country, while in the Thus, the remedy to all social and economic ills troubling England is rooting

Theout disobedienceterrible consequences in all its forms; of disobedience following thein political dictates lifeof benevolent are illustrated aristocrats by the and wise priests is the key to prosperity in this world and salvation in the next. equallybrought grave up by consequences him deliberately of disobedience to be a drunkard in Ernest’s and a personalrebel who life. in theVilliers’s final riotson wasscene kidnapped attempts to as kill a child his byown a schemingfather whom Jesuit he Pearcedoes not working know. He undercover is sentenced and to the gallows by the testimony of his own father, who also at that time does not recognize him. Fortunately, the execution is deferred because of his fatal sickness ofwhich his illness, gives hisduring father, which who the in young the meantime man realizes learns the the error truth of his about ways the and young dies aman’s penitent identity, man. the time to get him out of prison and nurse him in the final stages

14 Sewell’s story is largely the story about re-establishing the paternal authority, punishmenta narrative aboutfor his fathersfilial disobedience and sons, both towards on the his individualfather, despite and the societal fact that level. the Ernest Villiers interprets much of the misfortunes that struck him as a divine as Sewell argued in his Christian Politics old General Villiers is portrayed as an aged libertine unworthy of any respect. But, quotes Oedipus, of all people, as an example(1844), of both the father’ssad results and ofstate’s disobedience, authority should be preserved, since both family and the state are divine institutions;15 Thus, he

“a picture of the deepest horror and suffering which ever befel mankind.” theErnest’s mechanism activities of inestablishing restoring thepatriarchal paternal religion authority and of culture the Church as portrayed of England, by Freudmotivated in Totem by the and guilt Taboo about his unfilial behaviour,Moses and in Monotheism a way are reminiscent of figure of totem worship. Ernest(1912–1913) does a andsimilar thing, transferring(1937), his feeling where of sons, motivated by the guilt over the murder of their father, elevate him to the

Ibid 12 Ibid ., p. 297. 13 S. Griffin, Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction ., vol. 1, pp. 274–275. The whole14 argument about the psychoanalytic reading of Hawkstone is indebted to Susan (Cambridge, 2004), p. 71. a slightly different direction. Griffin’s insightful discussion of this book, pp. 62–78, even though my reading leads in W. Sewell, Christian Politics 15 (London, 1844), p. 74. [62] Monika Mazurek self-reproach from his deceased father to the Church of his father, emphasizing in his work its divinely-granted authority over the people of England. Indeed, in keeping with other Tractarians Sewell places such a high value on obedience that it sometimes seems to be the only virtue in his catechism. The key argument through which an Anglican clergyman converts Lady Eleanor, who comes from an Old Catholic family, to Anglicanism is that living in England, her refusing“first duty “obedience [...] is to place only where[herself] our under conscience, [her] lawful not leaning rulers,” on itself,going buteven supported so far as to claim that if she lived in Rome, her duty would be to submit to the Roman church, act as criminal.”16 by the external testimony of the primitive and other churches, denounced the and [tears] the children The main of this crime empire of Popery from theiris that, Father as Villiers in the puts State it andin the in lastthe Church,sentence as of my the child novel, was it “[rends] torn from asunder, me!”17 in this country, ties which God has joined, The parallels between Hawkstone and the story of Oedipus are striking and, Christian Politics shows, at least to some as the allusion to the myth in Sewell’s degree intentional on Sewell’s part, even though, beingHawkstone unaware there of theare significancetwo acts of patricide:that Freud one was symbolic, going to bygive Ernest to the the myth, elder, he who interpreted “kills” his the father story with of ingratitudeOedipus as anda cautionary disobedience, tale againstand the filialother disobedience. attempted real In one, during the riots. Hawkstone is from which Ernest, like Oedipus, sets it free; it is also, like Colonus, the place of Thebes and Colonus rolled in one; it is the place visited by the plague of modernity, William Sewell lays a particular emphasis on the need for clerical guidance in purification and penitence for Ernest’s son. actswomen: of charity,one of Ernest’s under themanifold protection acts of and charity direction is the ofreinstitution the Church of of beguinage, England. Obediencewhere spinsters of women and widowsplays a similarly can live togetherimportant and role devote in Margaret themselves Percival to various

(1847) by Williamher clergyman Sewell’s uncle sister, that Elizabeth she is Missingunable toSewell. make The a rational eponymous decision heroine, without who practicallyis wavering doing between a full the course Church of ofstudies England in Latinand the and Church Greek, of as Rome, well as is remindedProtestant and Catholic theology; failing that, converting to Romanism while ignoring18 her uncle’s warnings, would be an act of sinful wilfulness. “Keep a careful watch over a criticising, discontented spirit, and you will never become a Romanist,” uncle tells her sternly, implying – as many Catholic divines did – that human reason, freedomand especially of conscience that of aas young a burden, girl, writing:is too feeble to vanquish doubt and must rely on the authority of the Church. Elizabeth Sewell portrays the vaunted Protestant

op. cit 16 Ibid., p. 350. Sewell (1855), ., vol. 2, p. 312. 17 E. Sewell, Margaret Percival 18 (London, 1858), p. 480. UNDER WHICH LORD? THE CONFLICT BETWEEN OBEDIENCE AND FREEDOM... [63]

The right of private judgement is much spoken of, and supposed to be a great privilege; but there are not many, especially among women, who find it so. Their very physical weakness makes them willing to be governed, especially in questions of religion; and it is in this way that a power which comes before them, speaking authoritatively and requiring unreserved19 submission, seizes upon their imagination, and easily triumphs overThe theirconflict reason. between obedience and freedom is also the key issue in John John Inglesant th-century anHenry atypical Shorthouse’s Jesuit education: his tutor(1881). brought The him title up character, as an Anglican a 17 in order toyounger make him son ofan anintermediary aristocratic between family with the Church secret Catholicof England sympathies, and the Church receives of and Catholic circles, until, like Shorthouse, he finds peace of soul as a High Anglican. Rome. Consequently, Inglesant spends most of his life moving both in Anglican

Towards the end of his life, Inglesant sums up the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism in these words: “‘This is the supreme quarrel of all,’ he said. ‘This isother. not aOn dispute the one between side obedience sects and and kingdoms; faith, on theit is other, a conflict freedom within and a theman’s reason. own nature – nay, between the noblest parts of man’s nature arrayed20 While against practising each

Whatin danger, can come and whileof such in a theconflict end heas thisrejects but thethroes unquestioning and agony?’” obedience that the obedience to the commands of his spiritual director put Inglesant21 many times

AnglicanChurch of writers Rome demands, may be mystifying he still considers for contemporary it one of “ideal minds, virtues.” raised in the demo- craticThe culture elevation where of “critical obedience thinking” to the and rank “questioning of one of “idealauthority” virtues” are hailed by High as

- indispensable for the development of individuals and societies. However, for many Victorians observing the rapid transformation, or, from their point of view, disin tegration of the world surrounding them, familial, religious and civic disobedience seemed to be the root cause of all evil. The Roman Church, traditionally criticized by Protestants for its practice of turning its followers into unthinking slaves by requiring unquestioning obedience to the institution, started to be perceived as somewhat enviable in its ability to retain believers and attract new ones, as the judgementgrowing number and freedom of high-profile of conscience, converts emphasizing testified. In instead view ofthe that, need High of submisChurch- writers chose to turn their backs on the traditional Protestant virtues of private social and religious superiors. sion to the institution of the Church, respect for authority and obedience to one’s

Ibid., p. 236. 19 J. H. Shorthouse, John Inglesant 20 Ibid. 21 (New York, 1882), p. 441. [64] Monika Mazurek Bibliography Culture and Anarchy. London. Brooke, F. 1777. The History of Emily Montague. London. Arnold, M. 1869. - dom in English Political Thought”. Journal of the History of Ideas. Fatovic, C. 2005. “The Anti-Catholic Roots of Liberal and Republican Conceptions of Free Fisher, D. 2012. Roman Catholic Saints and Early Victorian Literature. Farnham. 66(1): 37–58. Griffin, S. M. 2004. Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. Cambridge. Areopagitica. Ed. John W. Hales. Oxford. Sewell, E. 1858. Margaret Percival. London. Milton, J. 1894. Sewell, W. 1844. Christian Politics. London. Sewell, W. 1855. Hawkstone. New York. Shorthouse, J. H. 1882. John Inglesant. New York.

Któremu Panu służyć? Konflikt między posłuszeństwem i wolnością sumienia w religijnej powieści epoki wiktoriańskiej

Streszczenie

Jednym z tematów regularnie przewijających się w protestanckiej literaturze polemicznej była kwestia legalności kościoła anglikańskiego, który był atakowany zarówno przez dysydentów, jak i katolików jako kościół “ustawy parlamentarnej”, a zatem nie pochodzący od Boga. W XIX w., gdy liczba katolików w Anglii szybko rosła, a ich najwyżsi przedstawiciele otwarcie wyrażali nadzieję na szybkie nawrócenie całego kraju, protestanccy powieściopisarze próbowali bronić swojej przynależności religijnej. Niektórzy pisarze wiktoriańscy zajmowali się w swoich powieściach kwestią posłuszeństwa władzy religijnej oraz sposobem ustalenia legalności takiej władzy. Nierzadko powieściopisarze posługiwali się historią konfliktu rodzinnego, aby ukazać takie zagadnienia w miniaturze, z rodzicami jako odpowiednikami władzy kościelnej i/lub państwowej, a dziećmi jako ich zbuntowanymi poddanymi. Konflikt pomiędzy posłuszeństwem i wolnością, lub, ściślej rzecz ujmując, posłuszeństwem władzy i wolnością wyboru, której władzy należy podlegać, był centralnym zagadnieniem tej dyskusji. Pisarze anglikańscy, chociaż byli dumni ze swojej wolności, uważanej za tradycyjną cnotę brytyjską, obawiali się, że jej zbyt duża doza może zwieść zanadto podatneHawkstone na wpływy Williama dusze Sewella,na manowce, Margaret czyli doPercival kościoła Elizabeth rzymskiego. Missing Niniejszy Sewell artykuł i John jestInglesant próbą przeanalizowania wniosków wypływających z tej argumentacji na podstawie powieści Johna Henry’ego SłowaShorthouse’a. kluczowe:

literatura wiktoriańska, traktarianizm, katolicyzm, posłuszeństwo, prawowita władza