"December 10th, 1896. "DEAR CARDINAL VAUGHAN,-I am glad to see from the Times that you are out again. As we may meet at the Guildhall next Monday (Hospital Sunday Fund), let me make an explanation on a matter which is personally small, but in other respects has importance. When we met at the People's Palace in the summer I found that it had been arranged that I should receive the Prince and Princess of Wales, but I had the pleasure of informing your Eminence that we had placed a chair on the platform for you above mine. This led to some inquiry by secular authorities. As the result, I was informed by the Archbishop of Canterbury that all Bishops appointed to English Sees, whether diocesan or suffragan, under Letters Patent of the Crown, have precedence in England in respect of other ecclesiastics; and the Archbishop told me that I must observe this on public occasions. I make this explanation in order that you may not regard my future course as fitful and inconsistent with that which I so gladly took on the occasion referred to, and should on all personal grounds so gladly take again. "Your Eminence's very faithfully, "G. F. STEPNEY." It may be admitted that if the thing had to be done, it could hardly have been done more considerately. To Cardinal Vaughan anything like controversy on such a subject was intensely distasteful. He had no difficulty in entering into and appreciating the point of view from which the Bishop's letter was written; but the rank of Cardinal in this country is so absolutely sui generis that he had hoped its right of precedence might continue to be acknowledged without offence to any one. A Cardinal may count as a stranger in London to-day; and yet what associations his title carries with it! Lord Cardinal" have their own indestructible place in English literature, as well as in English history. As long The very words "My as the names of Langton, Beaufort, and Wolsey are remembered, the style and title of a Roman Cardinal must remain familiar to our countrymen. The single fact that seven Cardinals have held the Great Seal of England is significant of the part which the Princes of the Church have played in the past of the nation. Cardinal Vaughan replied to the Bishop of Stepney as follows:: "ARCHBISHOP'S HOUSE, 11th December, 1896. "MY DEAR LORD,-I have an engagement that must hinder my being at the Guildhall on Monday. But I must thank you most cordially for your great delicacy and courtesy in writing to me as you have done on the subject of precedence. I can assure you that, like yourself, I have no personal feeling in such matters. But apart from this I cannot but think that the late Archbishop, to whom you refer, must have been thinking of precedence among Bishops, and that he could not have meant to say that the historical and universally recognised rank of a Cardinal is below that of a Bishop. "I am quite sure that your Lordship will appreciate the fact that our Catholic fellow-subjects, who number nearly ten millions in the British Empire, would feel it most keenly were a Cardinal to be received in future with less recognition in England than in the other countries of Christendom. But I do not write to argue the matter, but simply to thank you heartily for your great personal courtesy and kindness. "Believe me to be, my dear Lord, "Yours faithfully, "HERBERT CARD. VAUGHAN." The Bishop's answer runs thus :— "11th December, 1896. "DEAR CARDINAL VAUGHAN,-Let me thank you earnestly for your kind and welcome letter. I, too, do not argue the matter; indeed, it would be unseemly in me to do so. There is a very strong feeling on the subject in England adverse to the view so naturally expressed by your Eminence. Historical associations, especially of the times before the sixteenth century, appeal to my personal sense in an almost abnormal degree. But the feeling to which I have referred is a serious modern fact; and I hear so much of it that I cannot join in the proposition which you so pleasantly suggest. "Your Eminence's very faithfully, "G. F. STEPNEY." As Herbert Vaughan fully recognised that any precedence granted to him as Cardinal in this country could be the result only of spontaneous courtesy and good feeling, he felt that argument on the question would be quite out of place. Yet had he made no protest it might have seemed that the loss of the precedence formerly allowed was due to his indifference or default. But while he regretted the apparent slight to his rank as a Prince of the Church, he felt that the action of the Archbishop of Canterbury was very natural under the circumstances. A prolonged controversy such as that as to the validity of Anglican Orders was bound to have incidental consequences, and certainly the moment was not a favourable one for putting forward claims which could not be sustained in law. He hoped that the precedent set in the case of Cardinal Manning might again prevail, by universal consent, in some happier time. CHAPTER X THE BUILDING OF WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL THE 'HE project of building a Cathedral in Westminster had been before the Catholic body for many years before Herbert Vaughan came to London. It had been more or less vaguely mooted in Cardinal Wiseman's time, and at his death it was decided that a Metropolitan Cathedral should be his permanent memorial. A little later, in May, 1865, Cardinal Manning, then ArchbishopDesignate, presided at a public meeting called to approve and ratify the scheme. A subscription list was opened and trustees and treasurers for the fund were appointed. In his address to the meeting Cardinal Manning spoke of the enterprise as being not only a work of affection towards his predecessor, but also a work which was absolutely needed for the archdiocese and for the Catholic Church in this country. "The whole project," he added, "was in accordance with his wishes, with every suggestion of his public duty, with every affection of his heart towards the greatest and best friend he had ever had in his life; and his earnest desire was to further its success in every possible way. He gladly, therefore, took up the great burden of labouring for the rest of his life to carry out what had been decided. "Fifteen years had passed since the restoration of the Hierarchy in England. Many of the Suffragan Sees were already provided with Cathedrals, while the Metropolitan See of Westminster had only a Pro-Cathedral. The See of Westminster needed a Cathedral proportionate to the chief diocese of the Catholic Church in England, and to the chief city of the British Empire; and to raise such a Cathedral, the Catholics of England, in gratitude for the signal graces and blessing they had received, ought to make a generous effort." Yet, in accepting the heavy burden of responsibility and labour which he had been asked to take upon himself, he did so on one condition. He said publicly at the meeting that, before he could lay a stone upon a stone, the foundations of the spiritual Church in the diocese must be completely laid. By this he meant chiefly that the many thousands of poor Catholic children in the diocese-especially those whose faith was in the greatest danger through their being in non-Catholic workhouses, industrial and reformatory schools-must be spiritually provided for; and that to this most urgent spiritual need all precedence must be given. The first difficulty was to find a site. For many months it seemed a difficulty which could not be overcome. It was not until two years later that an opportunity presented itself of securing a piece of land which was even worth considering for such a purpose. In the autumn of 1867 there came into the market a plot of land in Carlisle Place, Westminster, which was 488 feet in length, but only 85 in its greatest width. The price asked was £16,500. The plot was inconveniently narrow, but, as there seemed no alternative, it was bought. Shortly afterwards Mr. Henry Clutton designed a Cathedral which, while of great length, was only about 70 feet in width. But before any decisive steps were taken an |