QUEEN MARY'S LETTER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 237, 1 July 1919, Page 8

QUEEN MARY'S LETTER

-.;.Sir,4tuch as.Mr. Howard. Elliott defplnves the '"inadequate teaching of hisCv in our schools,"'he does not hesitate to make statements which are unsuiSnorted 'Dy historical evidence. I " lie . K ed lis authority ,for stating that EliKh was a no lli«io was low l>rw. 1 can hml no accredited historian who commits himself to either statement. Am I to con i-ludo' thai vonr correspondent has discovered historical data hitherto unpublished'' if he has lie should discloso R by way of helpini; to make our present histories less "inadequate, bj the way, when making an impersonal amplification," Mr. Elliot has (inadyerlent.lv, no doubt) omitted the most salient fact bearing 011 Queen Marys last letter: Mary Stuart was the legitimate heir to the English Throne, while her cousin was bom outside the palo of lawful wedlock. Presumably, had Mary been a nominal Protestant, she. would have become the Queen of England, but having been a Catholic she was executed, 'lo my mind, therefore, she wrote the truth in her last 'etler, now lodged in the Jioyal Scottish Museum. That Mary was a v eiy ivicked woman admits of no doubt, but to imp!} that, she was wicked because she was a Catholic, is 100 stupidly malicious to find a place in a debate. Amongst that horde of unclean beings which comprised Henry s Court, there was but one who could la> any claim to womanly virtue, and that was the Catholic Princess Arragon. While all historians are as t ™ bad character of the Queen ot Scots, the} are equally agreed as to the ntterlj iepellant character of her cousin. Your correspondent gravely states that "the followers of John Knox are con ; vcrsant-with the history of Queen Mary. Of this can there be no doubt, as the said followers are usually men ot average intelligence. But for the reason they are 110 less conversant with tne other side. « . , » Thus, then, from the farcical pen of a learned and eminent follower of ,lonn Knox": "As a matter of fact Elizabeth was no less bloody than lier sister Mary. She was, without a doubt, the most shtmeless dissimulator of her own or almost of any age. She indulged habituallv ill the coarsest jests, and swore' ■like ft trooper. Dudley, Ilutton, Kaleign, Oxford, 131unt, Siraier, and Anjou were all reputed among the number of her lovers. Jler hatreds like her loves were not speculated merely. They took instant shape. She collared Hatton, spat on Sir llathew Arundel, nnd 'boxed the ears of the Earl Marshal. Her vanity was unbounded When she died lier wardrobe contained nearly three thousand dresses, all of the girl of the period style. . . . Her cruelties, unlike those of her sister Mnrv, did not have the poor excuse of religious bigotry. It is doubtful if she had nnv personal religion, the life she led was" pagan and not Christian, \\hen she persecuted it was simply to eiifoico her own supremacy as head of tho Church It is calculated that 110 fower than two hundred priests were put to dentil, while a still greater number perished in the pestilential gaols into which tliev were cast. Indeed, it is 011 the whole, hard to say where sister Mary should have bad a monopoly of the epithet bloody." I feel assured that feu*, if any» of your intelligent readers are likely to confound the Protestant religion with a small faction of vandals, whose sole mission in life seems to be the dissemination of the elements of strife amongst their fellow citizens. It is pleasing to know that the great mass of Catholics and Protestants alike appreciate the beauty and fragrance of the flower far too much (0 allow their minds to bcconie obsessed with the usual disagreeable odour of' tne elements essential to its growth.—l am, etc., J. M. CAMPBELL. Wellington, June 23, 1919.

Sir-Mr. J. T. Kent has failed to grasp the purport of what f have written and said concerning Mory Queen of 'Scots and the part of the Papacy in the recent war. I had no desire tu revivo again the tragedy of Mary and her history, hut if is timo that the lie—now 400 years old—thrtt she died n martyr for har religion was killed. That was my object in writing upon the subject The part played by the Papacy in the intrigues which brought about the subsequent antagonistic attitude of (he Vatican towards the Allies 's not offset by the fact (lint conscription took the Romanists of England, France, Italy, and Belgium in its Bween into the armies of the Allies.

as ii took them also into the armies Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria, nor by the fact that there were many thousands of Romanists who, brought up iu the national schools of England, France, Australia, and .New Zealand, had learnt loyalty to their country, and volunteered their strength to her cause. Mr. Kent does not believe that Sir James All.eu made a miserable lw-un with the 'leaders of Komanisiu foi tliu exemption of priests and Marist Bro uers. Unfortunately Archbishop O'Shea has _ said that he did. Mr. Kent wili probably believe the Archbishop if ho will not believe me. Does Mr. Kent know anything at all of the IM'.A. ? If he did he would not have committed himself to the foolish statement that "our candidates are always beaten at elections." The cry is raised by his own folk tLat they almost always have won. Our defeats cculd bo counted on the finger)! of one hand, but our victories in elections outnumber all Mr. Kent's fingers and toes, with a few left over for his family. Again Mr. Kent is wrong—though lie may lie pardoned this error, it has been so widely canvassed as true. Marshal Foch is not a. Romanist, ho is an elder of the Presbyterian Church of France, and as such countenanced and encournsed the distribution o'f copies of the. Bible to French soldiers. No Komanist would or dare do that. -So that, ofter nil, it is a P.P.A. Marshal who liafe'been so signaily successful even at the "front v I do not" think there is much left to answer in Mr. Kent's letter. , Your correspondent. "F.T.J.," in' 1 , his letter which appears in your columns of this l date, has so entirely missed Ihe 'mark that there is no reply necessary, five to sny that the "PP.A." stanHb for the Bible, and for "a national'sys; tern of education—free, compulsory, and undenominational."—l am. etc..

. . . HOWAW) ELLIOTT. Mnstertdn, .Tune 21, 1919. '

[The above letters have been.abridged.l