VOL. XXXI

NO. 1

T

HE prominent part taken by the present Duke of Norfolk in all that touches the interests of religion in England has long made his name a household word throughout Catholic circles at home and abroad, and, if only for this reason, an account of his ancestral castle of Arundel must be of interest to readers of THE ROSARY.

But there are other motives for which the story of this great English house will certainly appeal to our American friends. Arundel possesses certain characteristics of its own; a situation of unique picturesqueness and a history of romantic interest; in other respects it is a fair sample of hundreds of other homes belonging to the aristocracy of Great Britain, homes representing certain social conditions that, in this restless age of rapid changes, are becoming more and more rare and therefore doubly interesting. These conditions. do not exist in France, for instance, where the division of property has, within the last hundred years, considerably diminished the power and wealth of the nobility, and where, as a necessary sequence, old traditions have been swept away and local influences weakened. Few, if any, twentieth-century French landowners belonging to the

old

"noblesse" enjoy an importance to equal that of their luckier colleagues across the Channel.

The first aspect of Arundel, viewed from the south, is singularly pleasing; the little town, backed by wooded hills, is built between the feudal castle of the dukes of Norfolk on one side and the glorious church raised to God's honor by their present representative on the other; the spiritual and temporal forces that control the destinies of Arundel are thus aptly symbolized.

Many warlike and pathetic memories are connected with the picturesque, sunlit prosperous town, although its flowery gardens and general air of prosperity seem to point to peace and plenty rather than to tragedy.

As far back as Saxon times, a fortress existed on the brow of the steep hill, a stronghold raised by nature, whence the view extends over the surrounding country to the distant sea. In 1070 the Norman invaders of England took possession of Arundel; Roger de Montgomery, one of William the Conqueror's companions, became lord of the manor, which his sons kept till 1117, when, in consequence of their rebellion, Henry I seized their domains. The last Norman king had married late in life, as his second wife, a girl of eighteen, Adelais, the "fair maid of Brabant," and to her he left Arundel and other valuable lands.

The Flemish Queen, a sweet and noble royal lady, chose as her second husband a chivalrous Norman knight, William de Albini, but in 1243 their de

scendants became extinct in the male line and on John Fitzalan, the son of Isabella de Albini, devolved the splendid inheritance of the Countess-Queen.

The history of the brilliant Fitzalans is closely connected with that of the Plantagenets, their royal masters. Richard Fitzalan fought in Germany and Scotland with Edward I; he brought back to Arundel an Italian consort, Alisona did Saluzzo, and we wonder how the grey English skies and homely Sussex scenery appealed to one accustomed to the gorgeous coloring of the South. Another Richard Fitzalan was an ambassador and a statesman under Edward III; his less fortunate son was beheaded

The last of the Fitzalans, in whom were personified all the brilliant qualities of his race, left no son and his honors passed to his only daughter, Mary. She married a Howard, a direct descendant of Edward I and of his second wife, Marguerite of France, a worthy granddaughter of St. Louis, of whom the old historians tell us that she was "good without lack."

Mary Fitzalan, Duchess of Norfolk, who was the link between the past and present masters of Arundel, died at the age of seventeen, leaving an only child, the martyr Philip Howard, whose tragic history is one of the most pathetic episodes of the days of persecution in Eng

royal honors and King Philip of Spain was his godfather. He was still a mere boy when he married Anne Dacre, the greatest heiress of England, and we can hardly wonder that one on whom all the good things of this world had been so lavishly bestowed should have been dazzled and led astray by the corrupt example of Elizabeth's brilliant Court. His mother was dead, his father a man of the world, eager for distinction, his wife a mere child. In 1581, the sight of the Jesuit Father Campion, broken by torture, seems to have awakened Philip Howard's slumbering religious convictions. He was present at the famous public controversies between the tortured Jesuit and the chief Protestant divines, and Campion's unanswerable logic and persuasive eloquence made a lasting impression on his soul. Three years later, the seed bore fruit; Philip Howard turned his back on the Court, whose idol he had become, was reconciled to the Church of his baptism, and also to his wife, who had never ceased to love him.

This was enough to draw down upon him the vengeance of Elizabeth. The Earl was arrested at Littlehampton, close to Arundel, where he intended to sail for Flanders, and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was only thirty years of age and, during the ten years that followed, he remained a close prisoner. Elizabeth, with refined cruelty, forbade him to see his wife and children unless he consented to "conform" to the established religion. The long agony of Philip Howard is an heroic page in the history of the persecuted English Catholics. He was confined in a narrow cell, deprived of his immense wealth, separated from his family, prevented even from seeing a priest, and yet no word of

murmur passed his lips. He prayed day and night and wrote touching letters to his wife, entreating her to be "satisfied with what is God's good pleasure." He died in October, 1595, alone, as he had lived, his request to see the Countess, his children and a Catholic priest having been again cruelly rejected by the relentless Queen.

The parents of the present lord of Arundel were the martyr's worthy de

Sacred Wounds, in memory of her deceased husband.

The Catholic church, whose great Gothic inass rises above the little town, was built by the present Duke; it speaks eloquently, not only of the builder's faith and generosity, but also of the great and happy change that has brought freedom and peace to the descendants of the confessors of the faith.

To the present Duke, also, is due the restoration of the castle, a work that after lasting for many years is at last completed.

The noble edifice-an ideal feudal castle, with its severe and imposing architecture-rises among the trees, flowers and green lawns that give a touch of color and freshness to its otherwise solemn aspect. It presents the perf:ct picture, among modern surroundings, of a purely medieval home.

Above rises the "keep," with its walls of extraordinary thickness that, after many hundred years, still defy the strong winds that blow from the sea to the steep height; below is a Norman gateway, eight centuries old; if the grey stones could speak, what tales they might tell of the dead and gone warriors and ladies who once passed through the massive doorway!

Then we enter the castle through the "Baron's Hall," whose noble proportions and medieval chimney-pieces are wonderfully striking; on to the perfectly appointed library, the great gallery, the vast dining-room, with its view extending far away seaward. There are pictures everywhere; portraits of Fitzalans and Howards by Van Dyck, Opie, Lely and Gainsborough. A splendid Charles I by Van Dyck is peculiarly attractive: the well-known face, with its refined, melancholy charm, makes us understand how men cheerfully risked their lives for the "Martyr King," however much sober reason may have objected to his theories and practise. In another room is his wife, Henrietta

Maria of France, not "the reine malheureuse," whose unparalleled vicissitudes stirred Bossuet's eloquence, but a slight, bright girl, almost a child, whose brown eyes look out on life with happy unconsciousness of the sorrows that lie in waiting.

The castle chapel is, like the rest. pure Gothic, but it serves only as a private oratory for the family; more interesting, in an historical point of view, is the Fitzalan chapel, situated in the town of Arundel, whose history is a curious one.

In 1380, Richard Fitzalan, thirteenth Earl of Arundel, founded an ecclesiastical college a few steps only from his feudal home and chose the chapel of the college as the burial place of his family. Years passed by and the warriors and statesmen of his race were brought, one after another, to rest under the Gothic arches. When the so-called Reformation separated the isle of saints from the Catholic Church, the Fitzalan chapel, being considered as the private property of the Howard family, remained in the hands of the holders of the castle and was never used as a place of worship by the Protestants, although it was attached to the parish church. After a lawsuit that created some sensation at the time, the present Duke of Norfolk obtained full and undisputed possession of the ancient sanctuary where for seven hundred years his ancestors have been laid to rest; he was, in consequence, able to restore it, and after four centuries of silence, the sacred words of Catholic. worship are once more heard within the ancient walls. Here are buried the Duke's first wife, nee Lady Flora Hastings, his mother, his son, the Earl of Arundel. In the centre of the chapel is the gorgeous alabaster tomb of Thomas Fitzalan and his wife, the royal Beatrice of Portugal, and in a tiny coffin are gathered the bones of the martyr, Philip Howard, whom his faithful wife, Anne Dacre, brought to rest among his forefathers in 1624.