Wednesday, 17 September 2025

On no account would he be a party to the crowning of an upstart usurper of the legitimist Bourbon throne

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But would every cardinal have shown the same courage as he when summoned as Dean of the Sacred College by the dreaded Napoleon in 1804 to ac...
Tuesday, 16 September 2025

The Cardinal referred to George III as the Elector of Hanover.

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Till his dying day, the Cardinal [Henry Benedict Stuart] referred, with a cold smile, to George III as the Elector of Hanover. J. Lees-Milne...
Monday, 15 September 2025

Had he boldly apostatized before he set out for Scotland he would probably have succeeded in this expedition

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He [Charles Edward Stuart, the Young pretender] had never had strong religious convictions and only his father's undeviating faith and e...
Sunday, 14 September 2025

My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite

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That pillar of Toryism Samuel Johnson, in a benign and paternal mood, apropos of nothing took his host's niece's hand and said to he...
Saturday, 13 September 2025

It isn't about me not being able to see them, but them not being able to see me

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The dean's always been doubtful; he says a confession box won't stop them going back to a passing thuggish friar; after all I know w...
Friday, 12 September 2025

Life would be simpler if morally objectionable things like corruption also had unambiguously negative economic consequences

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Life would be simpler if morally objectionable things like corruption also had unambiguously negative economic consequences. But the reality...
Thursday, 11 September 2025

I see it matters to you what his motives are but it is of no importance for me

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'You and I are very different in the way we look at things,  Ashton said, 'and it has taken the advent of Kemp to make this differen...