Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
the Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
should ever be forgot.

- Children’s rhyme, 17th c.

Introduction

The seventeenth century saw the consecration and addition of three important dates to the liturgical calendar of the Church of England.  The first was 5 November, commemorating the discovery and prevention of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, thereby saving not only the life of King James I, but the lives of the members of Parliament as well.  The second was 30 January, commemorating the martyrdom of King Charles I in 1649.  The third and final of these was 29 May, commemorating both the return of King Charles II to England in 1660, and the date of his birth in 1630.  Each of these was given a special liturgy, appended to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and each liturgy was used annually until they were removed by Parliament in 1859.  These three days were all associated, therefore, with the English monarchy.  On the one hand, this gives us some insight into the theological and devotional foci of post-Reformation Anglicanism – and one of those foci was the monarchy itself.  On the other hand, the consecration of these dates gives us an insight into the liturgical practice of the Church of England – and one of those practices involved the consecration of holy days for ecclesial-national remembrance.  The purpose of this essay is to note the first of these dates, 5 November, and to use it as a springboard for a constructive consideration of what the distinctly royalist heritage of Anglicanism might mean for us today.

This essay is divided into three sections.  The first gives some historical background on the monarchy in and before the seventeenth century.  This is important to understand, because monarchy was no merely political phenomenon to England or its church in the early modern period.  Rather, it was a theological and devotional reality.  The monarch, as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, was central to the Church of England’s raison d’être.  The second section of this paper turns to the Gunpowder Plot itself and, after briefly outlining its history, I turn to a sermon given by Lancelot Andrewes in 1606, before the person of King James VI and I, on the first official commemoration of 5 November.  Andrewes was, in his day, one of the leading lights of the Church of England, and he remains not just an important historical figure, but someone whose life, witness, and writings do much to justify his standing as one of Anglicanism’s leading saints still today.  The concluding section of this paper turns towards the possibility of constructive retrieval that 5 November presents us with.  How do we take a national and once-religious (but now largely secularized) holiday and use its history and memory to build up Anglican existence today?  It involves an imaginative leap, for sure, as we must appreciate the political and theological dynamics of a world so foreign to our own.

I. Royalism and Devotion

In considering the importance of royalist holy days, we do well to note those historical details that help clarify the importance of these dates to Anglican memory and identity in the 17th – 19th centuries.  The liturgical articulation given to these three dates in 1662 was no mere novelty, and developed out of longer-standing Anglican beliefs – both scholastic and popular – concerning the importance of monarchs.  Only by understanding and appreciating the now-defunct importance of monarchy to post-Reformation Anglicanism can we begin a process of critical negotiation with the past, in which the past again becomes a source of theological creativity.

Any time a plot against a nation is discovered and prevented, there is reason for celebration.  In many ways, the realities of 5 November are not far removed from our own world; the psychological strain and feelings of horror experienced by many Americans in the wake of 9/11 provide a fertile common ground for considering how the English must have felt when they learned, in 1605, that a small group of Roman Catholics, led by Guy Fawkes, attempted to murder King James I and blow up Parliament while in session.  Furthermore, and again not unlike our current situation, Roman Catholics such as Fawkes perceived themselves fighting a religious war, but Anglicans perceived their acts as instances of civil and religious terrorism.  There is, however, an important difference between us and our spiritual forebears: in the monarchy, the English have an institution that is more than 1,500 years old – and, therefore, the English have a level of institutional history that Americans have a very, very hard time imagining.  The monarchy is the nexus upon which multiple streams of English identity converge.  In defending King James I, the English were not just defending a political institution or a head of state.  Rather, they were defending a way of life, with all of the richness, continuity, and order – both metaphysical and political – that the English monarchy signifies.

We may note two important historical elements of English monarchy in the seventeenth century – one devotional, and the other more broadly political.  The first of these, which is one of the most interesting elements in the history of English monarchy, is also one that is now largely forgotten: the Royal Touch.  According to tradition, St. Edward the Confessor, the eleventh-century king of the West Saxons, was given the ability to miraculously cure his own subjects of diseases.  Every English king after Edward was also given this ability, and the historical records indicate that many of them put it to good use, laying their hands upon thousands of sick persons and signing them with the cross.  The high medieval period saw the development of this practice in important ways.  Kings began to bless coins and rings, which they gave to their subjects as a way of warding off disease and pain, and these practices, along with the continued execution of the Royal Touch, were synced with the liturgical calendar in the 14th and 15th centuries, thus giving the devotional practices of high medieval English Catholicism a strong royalist element.  These practices continued unabated until the reign of William and Mary (1689 – 1702), and although it was revived in the reign of Queen Anne (1702 – 1714), it was never again practiced after her death – although it remained an important feature of popular sentiment well through the nineteenth century, just as its remembrance remains an important feature of High Church Anglicanism still today.  Charles I practiced this when he was king, and even healed some of his jailers.  After his beheading in 1649, his relics were said to heal in his place.  When Charles II returned to England in 1660, he immediately began resumed the practice of the Royal Touch, and laid his hands upon more than 100,000 people during his time as monarch.  The miracle-working powers of the king testified, like the office of monarchy itself, to continuity, order, and – in an iconic or typological fashion – to the rule of God.

The second historical element of English monarchy that we must focus on is the role of the monarch as the “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England.  It is well known that when Parliament acclaimed King Henry VIII the “Supreme Head” of the Church of England in 1534, this officially cut all ties with the papacy and brought the church under royal control.  Although Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI, maintained the title of “Supreme Head,” Queen Elizabeth I changed this title to “Supreme Governor” – a practice continued by every English monarch after her.  Whether or not this change was intentionally theological is unknown, but the pragmatic effects of it may very well be the most important: the monarch was ultimately in charge of the Church of England.  We do well to underscore two points.  First, the monarchy reveals that the Church of England was hierarchical.  It is not unfair to see the monarch as occupying a quasi-papal role, making enforceable administrative and theological decisions – a position of authority that no one person or group of persons within contemporary Anglicanism currently has.  Second, although the monarch was not an exclusively religious figure, there were many who felt that the monarchy should have been its own form of holy orders – debates about whether or not the monarch could, by virtue of his office, consecrate and celebrate the sacraments was a live point of debate until at least the time of Charles II.  Thus, the political reality of monarchy points to its devotional reality – even if, on this latter point, that devotional reality was speculated upon and debated, rather than actual.

It is not too much to write that monarchy was bound up with the worldview of seventeenth century English men and women.  There were, as one might expect, other ways in which monarchy shaped both the religious and political realities of the past – and some of these blurred the lines between the political and the religious.  Thus, for example, it was longer-standing practice to commemorate the day upon which a king (or queen) ascended the throne; the commemoration of 29 May in the 1662 BCP simply fused this tradition with the historical reality of King Charles II’s return and the dual restoration of both the monarchy and the Church of England.  No mere institution, monarchy was the focus of political and devotional realities.  Its maintenance was an unquestioned assumption in 1605 when Guy Fawkes and his associates sought to murder the king and, in the process, blow up Parliament.  Its unquestioned necessity and continuity help us to understand why the English reacted with such outrage when the Gunpowder Plot was exposed.

[Read Part Two of this essay.]
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Trying to explain to non-Brits why we still burn Guy in effigy on Nov 5 is very hard.  After all why would we still celebrate such a dreadful form of execution?  In the USA we do not celebrate the burnings of Salem, nor in Europe the burnings of the Inquisition.  Looking back, having been resident in the US for so long, I am not sure that I understand either!  We leave for our missionary responsibilities in Peru in a week.  They have a museum of the Inquisition in Lima - - they do not celebrate it but retain it as a grisly reminder of their past.  Thanks for the article.

Well, I live in the state whose song still refers to Abraham Lincoln as a despot (2nd word even) and a tyrant.

It is perhaps more accurate to say that the people of England have chosen to retain a Monarch and Parliament system since the Magna Carta and that elements of the people have pushed to end monarchy or exult it.  The Church of England, as opposed perhaps to Anglicanism, has chosen to note civil events with liturgical responses.  Richard Hooker gave no special preference to monarchy or monarchy in parliament, except that it was the current choice of the people.  That choice could be remade when an hereditary line died out.  Indeed his sense of the power of the people will be expanded in the 18th century to justify the over throw of despotic governmental systems.

It is fair to say that the monarchs became a devotional symbol of national identity, even when England began to import monarchs from Holland and Germany.

I would submit, however, that Anglicanism as an ethos has no particular requirement to be associated with monarchy or Royals.  While Guy Fawkes was making a statement about Roman Catholicism, perhaps the ongoing celebration of the day has more to do with being a subtle reminder to the monarchs and to parliament that the people and their consent is still the basis on which sound government is founded.  The popularity of the film “V for Vendetta” as a cinematic treatise on the responsibility of the people to resist tyranny and its twisting of truth brings the 5th of November into a contemporary context.

Michael Russell - 07 November 2009 01:04 PM

The Church of England, as opposed perhaps to Anglicanism, has chosen to note civil events with liturgical responses.

As opposed to, say, ECUSA? Care to check under “other major feasts” in the BCP?

Michael -

On the one hand, I am curious about your statement that “the people of England have chosen to retain a Monarch and Parliament system.”  Doesn’t that presume a unified autonomy, free from historical determination, on the part of “the people”?  It’s rather Lockean, but no one ever argued that Locke’s great myth was, in any way, logically coherent - let alone applicable.  What I mean is, to borrow from Heidegger, just as we are “always already” conditioned in our approach to texts, aren’t we “always already” conditioned in our approach to the political sphere?

In terms of Hooker, it seems to me that there is no way to really argue for your own perspective, just as there is no way to argue against it.  Monarchy was a reality that he grew up with, and it was a widely shared feature of Europe at that time.  Hence my point above about the hermeneutical element in the analysis - although Hooker holds a certain notion of monarchy and its relationship to the people as contingent upon an original act of acceptance, he also makes clear that later generations are bound to the acts of former generations (I will touch more upon this in the third part of my essay, btw).  So although I do not, at present, think anyone can coherently argue that Hooker has a metaphysics of monarchy in which monarchy is determinative and necessary for either political order as such or Christian political order, I do think that his notion of an original contract is not quite the same as later ideas that “the people” could, at any point in time, choose to dissolve the political body and remake it as they saw fit.  The monarchical devotion is older, though - once Edward the Confessor introduces the Royal Touch, and once it becomes standard hagiography with St. Aelred’s Life of St. Edward, it just goes from there.  The monarch as a national symbol is only comprehensible in the light of the older tradition of the monarch as the site of God’s power made manifest.  See Marc Bloch’s The Royal Touch and Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies.  You might also enjoy Andrew Lacey’s The Cult of King Charles the Martyr.

As far as Hooker’s use in the 18th century goes, I welcome any secondary sources.  My understanding, per Michael Brydon’s book The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker, J. C. D. Clark’s The Language of Liberty, 1660 - 1832 and his now-classic English Society, 1660 - 1832, and James B. Bell’s A War of Religion: Anglicans, Dissenters, and the American Revolution, Hooker was not a source of radical thought, but a source of conservatism.  Locke’s political ideas were lampooned in England, and only took root in America later in the 18th century, where they combined with a Calvinist theology of revolution.

I asked an English friend about 5 November, and he said that it’s really just a secular celebration with lots of eating and drinking, not unlike St. Patrick’s Day, in many ways.  “V for Vendetta” is an excellent movie in the English radical tradition, for sure, although in some ways it’s rather odd to use a Roman Catholic revolutionary to vindicate American and revolutionar political principles.  I suppose, though, that stranger things have been done.

I appreciate this careful wording, Ben: “So although I do not, at present, think anyone can coherently argue that Hooker has a metaphysics of monarchy in which monarchy is determinative and necessary for either political order as such or Christian political order, I do think that his notion of an original contract is not quite the same as later ideas that “the people” could, at any point in time, choose to dissolve the political body and remake it as they saw fit.”

I think this is so, but I am looking forward to your explanation of how his theology leads him to such a nuanced position, given the salient positions of his antagonists and patrons.

Suggesting that Hooker was open to something other than monarchy is of a kin to suggesting that Charles II would have had more success in picking up mistresses if he had bought a Rolls Royce.  Visiting views which had not yet emerged on our ancestors may be fun but it ain’t history!

Fr. Tony Clavier - 08 November 2009 05:36 PM

Suggesting that Hooker was open to something other than monarchy is of a kin to suggesting that Charles II would have had more success in picking up mistresses if he had bought a Rolls Royce.  Visiting views which had not yet emerged on our ancestors may be fun but it ain’t history!

It might be helpful to re-read Hooker VIII.2.5 ff.  He certainly understood forms of governance other than monarchy and he certainly understood that the people made the choice to give power to the one. VIII.2.12-13 are debunk the Royalist notion Ben is advancing by making the monarch a creature of the law, not the law itself.  “Happier thatpeople whose law is their king in the greatest things, that that whose king is himself their law. Where the king doth guide the state, and the law the king that commonwealth is like an harp or melodious instrument the strings whereof are tuned and and handled all by one.” (VIII.2.12)  This king does not rule by his own power seized, nor by God’s appointment, but by compact.

Hooker saw no need to change the form of governance the people had consented too, but like Bishops, there was no divine right attached to monarchy.

Dear Michael:

And where would non-monarchical forms of government be discovered in Hooker’s day.  I can’t see him approving of the Genevan model, or the government of Venice: well there was San Marino.  I know of no writing expounding Republican forms in Hooker’s day.  I was thus suggesting that the thought of a non-monarchical form of government was not one one would expect to enter Hooker’s noddle.

Well, gosh, Tony how about England!  Remember that pesky parliament!  And the Magna Carta.  England had monarch in parliament, not a unilaterally able monarch.  And Hooker throughout the Laws has a clear sense of authority rising from the consent of people.  He sort of defends what exists as an appropriate choice that countries can make, but he does not write it in stone as an eternal necessity.  And given all the attacks on the queen he would have been insane to enumerate other possible forms of government, though surely he could have.  He can contemplate forms without having a real one to point to.

I find all this royalist stuff curious, but Ben I am enjoying your posts on RH.  You open a nice window on his work.

Well Michael, how may one propose that even a constitutional royalist like Hooker might contemplate some other form of government, the like of which would only emerge by accident two reigns later?  And remember what the English thought of the Rule of the Military under dear old Cromwell. Even then they wanted to make Oliver king.

We wanted to make Washington King too!  Hooker could envision a church polity without Bishops, he could certainly envision a civil government without royalty.  Whatever sort of royalist he was, he saw no divine right in it. That England was Parliament with a King subservient to the laws of England and the Church rather than King as dispenser of laws is significantly different than France for example.

Hooker saw no needful reason to overthrow monarchy or even restrict its role in governing church affairs, but he did limit it.

Michael I fear that you are transposing the later views of the Parliamentarians to an earlier moment.  Please cite me evidence that Hooker’s views of Monarchy and Parliament are as you suggest.  I find no such evidence nor of any appeal to such a theory in Elizabethan writings. You may overthrow the received views on political theory in Tudor England!