Coronation of King Charles IV of Hungary 1916

Today is the centenary of the coronation of  the Bl. Emperor Charles as King Charles IV of Hungary in 1916. The fact that he had received this sacramental was of enormous spiritual significance to the King and his Queen Zita, and why he refused to renounce his rights in 1921.

The ceremony, central to the traditional Hungarian concept of kingship, was both deemed to be a constitutional requirement and also, it seems, as a means of binding the new King, who had succeeded to the throne in late November, to the existing balance of political power within the realm by the Prime Minister, Count Tisza.

The history of the ceremony can be viewed at Coronation of the Hungarian monarch.

There is an account of the preparations for the 1916 coronation in Miklos Banffy's memoir The Phoenix Land and part of that is reproduced online at Coronation-of-Emperor-Karl with additional material. There is also a detailed description of the day, set within the action of a sprawling novel about a Magyar aristocratic family, in Lajos Zilahy's The Dukays.

 

 The Holy Crown, Orb, Sceptre and Sword of the Hungarian Regalia

Image: Wikipedia

 

Queen Zita and the Crown Prince travel to the Coronation in the State Coach  

Image: Pinterest

The King taking the Coronation oath at the foot of the Holy Trinity pillar outside the Coronation Church of St Matthias

Image: Getty Images

The King on horseback upon the hill composed of soil from every county in Hungary.
This part of the ceremonial involved the King riding up the hill and brandishing his sword to the four points of the compass to symbolise his defence of the frontiers of the kingdom - indeed the oath speaks of extending them.

Image: Monarchy Forum

King Charles IV

Image: Pinterest 

King Charles IV, Queen Zita and Crown Prince Otto.
The King died in 1922, Queen Zita in 1989 and Otto in 2011.

Image: viktor.hu

King Charles IV wearing the Holy Crown
and mantle of St Stephen and holding the sceptre.
He was Beatified in 2004

Image:Pinterest

Film of the processions and oath taking can easily be found on YouTube 

 

Emperor Charles Novena

Today I began the Novena for the canonisation of Bl. Charles of Austria as part of the lead up to his feast day on October 21st. For convenience I have downloaded it to my mobile phone.

 

 Bl.Charles of Austria

Image:Wikipedia

The Novena and other prayers as well as a biography and background information together with a gallery of photographs can be found on the Emperor Karl League of Prayer website, at
emperorcharles.org/English/leagueofprayer_english.shtml

Bl.Emperor Karl commemorated by Juventutum in Washington

On The New Liturgical Movement website there is a post about the recent celebration on October 21st of an EF Mass at St. Mary, Mother of God Catholic Church in honour of Bl.Karl of Austria in Washington D.C.

The text is that of a talk given after the  Mass by Juventutem DC leader Daniela Petchik. This was delivered at a reception which followed the Mass, with speeches from H.I.R.H. Prince Bertrand of Orleans-Braganza, the Prince Imperial of Brazil (Vassouras Line), Raymond de Souza and by Daniela Petchik. Miss Petchik was kind enough to provide NLM with her own remarks, which serve as a thoughtful meditation not only on the life and witness of the Emperor but also about the traditional spirituality that Juventutum encourages amongst the young faithful.

The blog post with the speech can be read at Blessed Karl of Austria — Sanctity and Perfection in his Footsteps

Blessed Emperor Karl of Austria

Today is the appointed feast day of the Blessed Emperor Karl of Austria. The day was selected as it is the date of his wedding to the future Empress Zita in 1911, and their exemplary married life was recognised as part of his claim to beatification. This is covered on the official website for his cause at The Emperor Karl League of Prayers, and which has a biography, photographs and prayers for his canonization.

The Mad Monarchist blog has an illustrated profile of him at Blessed Emperor Charles I, and Roman Christendom has a blog post from 2008 which concentrates on the piety of the Emperor which can be read at The holy Peace Emperor: Feast Day of the Blessed Emperor Charles of Austria on 21 October. The blog Nobility and other Analogous Elites had a good post last year about him which can be read at Karl of Austria

The Coronation procession of Blessed Karl as King of Hungary in Budapest on December 30th 1916

Image: iwm.org.uk

The psalmody at several points in both Lauds and Vespers today, in the ordinary course of the psalter, appeared very apposite on a day I was observing for a beatified monarch, the successor of both Charlemagne, recognised as a beatus at least by the Catholic Church ( even if his canonisation was by an anti-Pope) and St Stephen of Hungary as founders of the Empire and of the Apostolic Kingdom.

Quite apart from his genuine attempts to end the war in 1917, if the Austro-Hungarian Empire had survived ,WAvoid tragic loss of life if empire had survived it would have by its very existence have been a means of preventing so much more dreadful bloodshed and misery for the peoples of Europe.

The Emperor in the uniform of a Field Marshal

The uniform mayhave been field-grey, but the plumes of the hat would be green. I assume the black arm-band is for the Emperor Francis Joseph.

Image: Mad Monarchist blogspot

Quinta do Monte in Madeira
The Emperor died here on April 1st 1922

Image:panoranio.com 

Bl. Emperor Charles of Austria

Today is the feast day appointed for Bl. Charles of Austria - the date was chosen because it is the anniversary of his  wedding in 1911 to  Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and his exemplary married and family life was recognised as one of the justifiable causes for his Beatification in 2004. A second miracle was recognised by the Vatican in 2008. This was the cure in Florida of a Baptist, who subsequently converted to Catholicism. There is an account of this here.

Bl. Charles of Austria
A portrait from 1915

Image:Wikipedia

I have posted about him several times in Bl. Emperor Charles of Austria in  2010, Emperor Charles of Austria obit, Novena for the canonization of Emperor Charles and Coronation in Budapest from 2011 and Death of Bl. Emperor Charles 1922 and Bl. Emperor Charles of Austria from 2012.

The Emperor-King was clearly, transparently, a good man, a decent man, one who sought peace. His great uncle the Emperor Francis Joseph had expressed the wish to find a negotiated settlement in his last months, and the young future Emperor 's words at the time of the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 record his horror at the enthusiasm for war on the part of some, whilst firmly believing in the the justice of the Austrian cause. His attempts in 1917 to achieve a negotiated peace on the lines advocated by Pope Benedict XVwon him no thanks from the Western allies or from his own in Germany.

Whether he would have been able to reconcile the different communities of his inheritance had he come to the throne in peacetime or even under the terms of the October Patent is unknowable, but he clearly enjoyed popular esteem from the ordinary people and his commitment to their welfare, both before and after November 1918, and that could well have worked in his favour had he been spared.

What is clear is that the peoples of the realms over which he reigned have had a far from happy time for much of the period since November 1918 - dissolving the Habsburg Empire was a disaster.

Usually I say the Novena for his canonisation in the days leading up to today, but having been busy it has not happened this year - mea culpa, so that is something else to start in the coming days. The Novena can be found, along with information about the life of the Emperor and pictures of him on the website of the Emperor Charles League of Prayer. In addition there is the website of the Empress Zita cause. There is a handsomely illustrated online life of the Empress together with that of her husband here. 

The Emperor Charles I

Image: info-regebnten.de

There is a short biography of the Emperor by James and Joanna Bogle entitled A Heart for Europe and there is a much fuller account by Gordon Brook-Shepherd in The Last Habsburg, which includes many of the reminiscences of the Empress Zita who cooperated with the author when he was writing the biography.

The Emperor's Standard
This form of the standard was adopted in 1915

Image: The Habsburg Monarchist

At the Beatification of Emperor Charles in 2004 his son and successor Otto of Austria receives communion from Pope John Paul II

Image:New Liturgical Movement

The Emperor's monogram

Image: Wikipedia

May Bl.Charles of Austria pray for the peoples of his dominions, for peace and for us all

Novena for the canonization of Emperor Charles

As I did last year I have started the Novena for the canonization of the Emperor Charles of Austria in the lead up to his feast day on October 21st. The text of the Novena, with its reflections on his life, can be found here. The website for his cause is that of the Emperor Charles League of Prayer

Bl. Emperor Charles

Image: Emperor Charles League of Prayer

Imperial piety

After Mass this morning at the Oratory there was the usual catching up on news with friends in the Social Centre and there I had the opportunity to meet James and Joanna (Auntie Joanna writes ) Bogle who were visiting Oxford. I took the opportunity to tell them how I had appreciated reading their book A Heart for Europe, which is a life of the Bl.Emperor Charles I of Austria and of his wife the Empress Zita.

The future Empress and Empress on their wedding day October 21 1911

Their book is an excellent introduction to the life of the Emperor, and in particular to both his personal piety and charm, and to his search for peace in the months after his accession to the Habsburg throne in 1916.

We agreed that the story of the Emperor and Empress would make an excellent subject for a film, and even speculated about possible actors.

The websites for the Imperial couple's causes can be found at Emperor Charles League of Prayer and at Empress Zita cause.

Remembrance

Here are a few thoughts, not necessarily all connected, about Remembrance and reflections on war in the last century.

I am not a pacifist, not by nature, not by conviction, not as a historian, not as someone who knows something of human nature - but I increasingly find it difficult to see the case for war and destruction, and certainly not the waste of human life, usually at its most hopeful stage in early adulthood, for causes that are politically and morally wrong or stupid. I had, and have, no doubts about the appropriateness of the Falklands campaign, or the First Iraq war, but subsequent campaigns have, I am inclined to think, been unwise, fooling or plain wrong.

When it comes to the Great War I think I agree with this post from the American Mad Monarchist , though I might be more optimistic than he is that some of the tensions of 1914 would have been resolved bilaterally and peacefully. Basically he says what I have thought for years. The events of the summer of 1914 were a disaster with few parallels in history, and not, by any means, inevitable.

In the wake of the war many sought, and continue to seek, to blame the pre-war establishments, the monarchies and social hierarchies for what happened. My own feeling is that the old order appeared to be in control, but were the facade behind which other forces manipulated events. When defeat came the old symbolic institutions could be jettisoned, but the modern state ploughed on regardless. The two generation s before 1914 had seen a transformation of state institutions that was concealed from both the monarchs and their subjects. In their different ways they paid the price, but the forces that shaped events usually emerged unscathed. Thus monarchs on both sides could lament that Queen Victoria was not around to solve the quarrels of her grandchildren, not realising that they were themselves prisoners of a system that reduced them to cyphers much of the time. So the problem was not and is not the old order, but its initial subversion from within by popular and institutional forces, forces which have in a huge variety of forms been strengthened by the century of total war. Restoring government to its proper place in the human scale, but also the Divine scale, of things is part of the way of correcting that development.

Fr Jerome Bertam in his sermon yesterday morning at the Oxford Oratory spoke of the 1914-19 war medal that described it as the "Great War for Civilisation", and said that rather we should see the end of European civilisation in 1914, and that it was followed by the Peace to End Peace. All this he ascribed to the sin of Pride, pointing out that it affects all systems of government, monarchies and republics alike, display this, the sin of Satan.

This is true. The post-1918 experience makes it very clear that the liberal vision that without monarchs there would be less conflict was fatally flawed, and indeed a very dangerous delusion indeed. Nor is post-1945 liberal democracy, let alone popularist, collectivist, radical or revolutionary democracies more peaceable and less bellicose - but being the voice of the people, or rather the Voice of The People - i.e.what they can be conned into believing - are less constrained by human reason and piety.

The Mad Monarchist follows his post with one about the one temporal ruler amongst the combatants of 1914-18 who tried to stop the war - the Emperor Charles I of Austria, to whom I have, as regular readers will be aware, a devotion.

This was already the month of prayer for the dead before it became the season of Remembrance. I prayed for two, not especially close relatives who died in the Second World War, for friends of my parents and for all the war dead. That is something we can do for them. For ourselves and our contemporaries, and for our successors we should take care not to waste human lives as carelessly as the twentieth century became so used to doing - and that requires thought for the individual, thought for the nation, and thought about ourselves and our fallen nature.

Fr Blake from Brighton has some not dissimilar reflections here, which I would also commend to your thoughts.

Bl. Emperor Charles of Austria

Today is the day assigned for the commemoration of the Bl.Emperor Charles of Austria, who was beatified in 2004. He is the only monarch or head of state of the twentieth century to be, so far, enrolled amongst the blessed by the Catholic Church. The Russian Orthodox Church has, of course proclaimed Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their family to be Passion Bearers, and the Empress' sister has been canonized - St Elizabeth the New Martyr. However Bl.Charles is the only westerner to be so recognised, but the cause of his wife, the Empress Zita has now been introduced - vide Empress Zita cause

The Emperor Charles League of Prayer gives a biography, pictures and prayers and is well worth looking at and indeed using as a devotional aid.

Engagement photograph of The Archduke Charles and Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma July 12 1911

I am currently reading James and Joanna Bogle's A Heart for Europe (Gracewing), which is a popular, readable biography of the Imperial couple. As abook it might benefit from better copyediting than it received, but it does tell the story with sympathy and compassion.

From all accounts Charles emerges, quite apart from his inherited position or personal holiness, as a thoroughly decent young man, of high principle and genuine kindliness.The political and personal tragedy which overwhelmed him and his people was a tragedy not just of a life cut short by illness and exhaustion in his thirty fifth year, nor just of adynasty, but of millions for whom he had sought to bring just governance, and for millions more beyond his domains who were eventually caught up in the chaos and calamity that has ensued from the destruction of the old order.

Canonised Kings may not seem very relevant to the modern world, or even the modern Church - although we have seen the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury kneeling in prayer at the shrine of St Edward in recent weeks - but I would suggest that if people do not see their relevance then it is those who do not see who are impoverished. Impoverished in their spiritual as well as their temporal vision, and living in an impoverished world. Whether that impoverishment can be undone may not be easy to discern. The mills of God grind slowly. We need men like the Emperor Charles, and we need their prayers.

Bl. Charles of Austria pray for us

St Edward and St Edward's Crown

Today is the Feast of the Translation of St Edward the Confessor. The day commemorates the move of the relics in 1163 within the abbey church at Westminster built by Edward at the time of his canonization.

St Edward as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry

His shrine in the present, thirteenth century, Westminster Abbey is shown here:

and here is the scene in the Abbey on the occasion of the Papal visit, as part of which the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed at St Edward's shrine behind the High Altar.

The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury at prayer together at the Shrine of St Edward the Confessor.
Image from Idle Speculations

St Edward's positionas patron of the Monarchy and exemplar of English Kingship is enshrined in St Edward's Crown, used to crown the monarch.but not worn subsequently. This practice is similar to that followed in France, Hungary and Bohemia.

Bless we beseech thee this Crown and so sanctify thy servant Elizabeth, upon whose head this day thou dost place it for a sign of royal majesty ...

There have been two St.Edward's Crowns. The first was believed to have belonged to Edward the Confessor. The second was the crown which replaced it in 1661.

The original St. Edward's crown was kept at Westminster Abbey rather than in the Tower of London. This can be seen as indications its status as a relic in the custody of the Church. Aidan Nichols expresses this elegantly and susuccinctly in The Realm in his passage about the centrality of the Coronation to national life. By 1399 it had, if Froissart is to be believed accurate in his description, and he makes the point as clearly being a significant one, that King Henry IV was crowned with St Edward's Crown and that it was arched - implying sovereignty directly under God. As Henry's coronation followed rapidly upon the deposition of King Richard II, and from what is clear about Richard's devotion to St Edward and his exalted view of his regal position. it may well be that it was he who had added the arches. The effect may, possibly, have been rather like his father-in-law Charles IV's Crown of St Wenceslas, about which I wrote recently, although the English crown appears to have always alternated crosses and fleur de lys:

Following the regicide of Charles I in 1649 and the `abolition'of the Monarchy St. Edward's Crown was taken to the Tower of London to be melted down at the Mint. However there is no evidence that the metal was actually used for coins and it is thought that it may have been used to make the crown that Cromwell is said to have ordered in 1656 and which was displayed at his funeral two years later.

At the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, directions were given for a new 'St. Edward's Crowne'. Partly on the basis that only one new crown was delivered, but two were in use at the 1661 Coronation, it has been suggested that the crown which existed in the 1650s was refashioned. It has been suggested that the same gold from the old crown, from the Treasury supply, may have been used to make the new St. Edward's Crown in 1661. The work of Robert Vyner, who made the whole new set of regalia, it is made with 4lb 12oz of solid gold. From 1661 until the early twentieth century, the crown was set with stones hired for the coronation and then returned and replaced with paste stones.

The design of the present crown may well reflect that of its predecessor. In 1649 it was described as "King Alfred's crowne" and as being of gold wirework and set with slight stones and two little bells. Assuming a missing comma between "gold" and "wirework", with the wirework referring to the mounts for the stones, and that the pendant pearls from the cross on the monde are the representitives of the bells what Robert Vyner produced may well be a close or fairly close reproduction of what had been lost. His Imperial State Crown was not however very similar to that which was lost in 1649 - but that is another story about which I will post on another occasion.

From 1702 until the early 19th Century the crown was not actually used for the Coronation, but was instead only carried in the procession as a symbolic object. At Queen Victoria's Coronation in 1838 it did not even leave the Tower of London.

King Edward VII decided to revive the central role of the crown of his saintly namesake and St. Edward's crown was refurbished and prepared for his coronation in 1902. However, he had to abandon his plans to wear the heavy St. Edward's Crown as at the time he was recuperating after an appendicitis operation, and instead, like his mother was crowned with the Imperial State Crown, although on both occasions it was referred to as St Edward's Crown. For the coronation of King George V in 1911, Garrards carried out £375 worth of work, permanently resetting the crown with 444 precious and semi-precious stones. Since then it has once again been used as the actual Coronation Crown. In 1911 King George V quickly exchanged it for the lighter Imperial State Crown, but both King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II wore it for the enthronement and homage until the Communion at their Coronations.

Meanwhile I am off to start my novena to that sainted King of the twentieth century, Bl.Emperor Charles of Austria, in the lead up to his feast day on October 21st. It can be found on the Emperor Charles League of Prayer website.