And then shall arise a King of the Greeks, whose name is Constans, and he himself will be the King of the Romans and of the Greeks. This man will be large in stature, handsome in appearance, luminous in face and also well formed in all the features of his body. And his reign will be limited to 112 years. Therefore in these days there will be much wealth and the earth will give fruit abundantly so that a modius [Roman unit of measurement equivalent to nine litres] of wheat will be sold for one denarius [a small silver Roman coin], a modius of wine for one denarius, a modius of oil for one denarius. And the King will have before his eyes the scripture saying: “The King of the Romans shall claim the rulership of the Christians for himself.” Therefore the islands and cities of the pagans will be laid waste and all the temples of idols destroyed, and all pagans called to baptism and through all the temples the cross of Jesus Christ erected. Then indeed shall Egypt and Ethiopia stretch out their hands toward God. Whosoever does not truly adore the cross of Jesus Christ will be punished with the sword, and when the hundred and twenty years are completed, the Jewish people shall be converted to the Lord, and his sepulcher will be renowned by all. In those days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell confidently.

– Tiburtine Sibyl

Holy Week and Easter are nothing if not Monarchical. This of course makes sense, because they commemorate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the King of Kings; as might be expected, in the Ages of Faith, the Christian Monarchs East and West took Christ’s Kingship very seriously, as did their subjects. Since it was on Maundy Thursday that Our Lord fused His Davidic Kingship with the Communio of the Church, in time the symbol of the union – the Washing of the Feet – would become a major ceremony in all Western Catholic Monarchies. As Dom Prosper Guéranger puts it: “We occasionally find Kings and Queens setting this example of humility. The holy King Robert of France, and later, St. Louis, used frequently to wash the feet of the poor. The holy Queens, St. Margarite of Scotland, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, did the same… Yea, there are still to be found Kings and Queens who, on this day, wash the feet of the poor, and give them abundant alms.”

That compilation of interesting ceremonial, Curiosities of Popular Customs, tells us:

Read more

Yet some men yet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu in another place. And men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the Holy Cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse, Hic iacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rex que futurus.

— Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur

I have loved King Arthur and the Arthurian tales since my father took me to see The Sword in the Stone when I was three (in 1963) – so did he. Thus I was thrilled when the Internet tossed up to me the following:

“MORE EVIDENCE FOR KING ARTHUR’S EXISTENCE: Long overlooked, this ancient reference to King Arthur adds weight to the case for his historical existence. An ancient British funerary verse, written around AD 650, is one of the earliest mentions of Arthur yet discovered. In a lament called The Death-Song of Cynddylan, a princess named Heledd mourns the death of her brother, the king, saying how he and his family were descendants of a mighty hero called Artir – the spelling of the name Arthur often used in Old Welsh, the language spoken at the time. Translated, the text says that Heledd’s brothers were ‘the heirs of great Arthur, the mighty defender.’ This work, which still survives in a manuscript catalogued as MS 4973B in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, was written 500 years before the first of the medieval Arthurian romances was compiled.”

This means that the core of Arthuriana – the Romano-British chieftain who kept the light of Catholicism and civilisation aloft as the darkness of chaos and barbarism closed in around Britain – is attested to less than two centuries after he is supposed to have died, if indeed he did, in battle. Added to this are the testimonies of Gildas and Nennius, the Mabinogion, and lastly of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose heavily mythologised History of the Kings of Britain nevertheless packaged Arthur for further elaboration by such as Robert de Boron, Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Sir Thomas Malory. In the late Middle Ages, the popularity of Arthur and his Knights soared all across Europe, but the Protestant Revolt sent them packing into obscurity.

Read more

Isaac Asimov, of all people, hit upon the ultimate question that can be asked of the universe. As a scientist – a science populariser, at any rate – Asimov was clear-headed about how future history pans out, what awaits us at the end of the cosmic road. Namely, the heat death of all things, and darkness unending. When all the stars have burned out, and the universe has stretched out into infinite thinness, and all subatomic particles have evaporated in asymptotic decay. Asimov asked: how can we, squatting in the long dark in the dim glow of the last nuclear torch, reverse entropy? Thus goes the premise of “The Last Question”. But to say any more would be to spoil the story.

What interests me is not Asimov’s answer, clever and delightful though it is, but the dread that lurks beneath the asking. For is not entropy but death writ large – the cosmic waxen mask of something we meet daily in the flesh? Daily, say I, but of course it is not so. No. Would that it were. Would that we could meet it and walk away. We cannot. There is no pencilling it in; or if we do so, nothing comes after. The finality that attends death, whether by violence, misfortune, or the quiet attrition of years, is immovable. And relentless is its march. Memories dim, cells degrade, muscles wither, until one day comes the final falling-off, the loss irretrievable. Nothing we can do can bar it. Veganism, temperance, surgeries, vitamin injections, or having only beef tallow to drink – all our arts can contrive to add maybe another score to the threescore and ten ordained for us.

Is this not unjust? Is this not sickening? To have the gift of life, and yet to be torn from it. I find the imposition evil. To be sure, not too many will confess to agreeing with me. Some feign stoical nonchalance. Some claw for pleasure – sex or drugs or money or power, as though death bypasses the sybaritic senator. Others make a play of it – rebirth, transmigration, entries in the karmic ledger. Still others claim that death is a part of life, a seasonal molting. All keep their monthly medical appointments. No-one can convince me that I am wrong. Death is, at its blackstone heart, a deprivation.

Read more

Last January 25, and next January 25, I took and shall take part in a ritual at once solemn and amusing, timeless and spontaneous – not part of the Church’s liturgy, yet nonetheless a fitting companion to the more liturgical observances of the Month of the Holy Name. Although observed primarily by natives of a single nationality, I celebrated it in 2018 at the Tam O’Shanter Restaurant in the Atwater district of Los Angeles; this year will take me to Chavagnes International College in the heart of France’s Vendée region. Yet this formal dinner – for such it is – honours neither some glimmering star of old Hollywood nor a stalwart of Catholic Counter-Revolution, but a Scots poet who died all too young of exposure: Robert Burns (1759–1796).

To be sure, Burns Suppers – like bagpipes, kilts, and tartans – may be found throughout the Anglosphere and wherever else Scots have settled, including California and France. But a Catholic might well wonder why his co-religionists should have any interest in the national poet of a country as renowned for Freemasonry and Presbyterianism as for whisky and golf. It should be borne in mind, firstly, that not only is Calvinism a relatively recent import to Scotland, but that Catholic Scots opposed its advance at least as valiantly and tragically as the English, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish did in their own lands. The House of Stuart lost its thrones – including that of Scotland, their original realm – because of their Faith, and their heavily Catholic Cavalier and Jacobite supporters lost at least as much thereby.

Moreover, the Catholic Church in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand owes much of its origin to Scots exiles. There are more Catholics of Scots descent (and more native Scots Gaelic-speakers) in Canada than in Scotland itself; St Mary MacKillop and her entire circle of family and supporters were ethnic Scots; and the Church in New Zealand’s Otago region was founded by Highlanders. In the United States, the Scots predominance in bagpipe playing has led to pipe bands being created for innumerable primarily Irish police and fire departments. However Socialist the Scottish National Party has become in recent decades, one of its founders, the Earl of Mar, was a Chestertonian and a Catholic convert who based his politics firmly upon his faith – as did Sir Compton Mackenzie. In truth, Catholic Scots have proved loyal sons of St Andrew the Apostle, the nation’s patron.

Read more

“Once there were fine, resplendent times when Europe was a Christian land, when one Christendom occupied this humanly constituted continent. One great common interest united the remotest provinces of this broad spiritual realm. Without great worldly possessions, one Head guided and unified the great political forces. A numerous guild, to which everyone had access, stood directly beneath him and carried out his behests and strove with zeal to confirm his beneficent power. Every member of this organization was universally honored, and if the common people sought comfort or help, protection or counsel from this member, and in return were happy to provide generously for his manifold needs, he also found protection, respect, and a hearing among the more powerful, and everyone cared for these chosen men, equipped with miraculous powers, as for children of Heaven whose presence and favor spread manifold blessing abroad. Childlike faith bound men to their pronouncements. How cheerfully every man could fulfill his earthly labors when, through the agency of these holy persons, a secure future was prepared for him and every misstep forgiven, when every discolored spot in life was obliterated by them and made clean. They were the experienced helmsmen upon the great unknown sea, in whose keeping one might disdain all storms and count on a sure attainment of the coast and a landing at the world of the true home.”

— Novalis, “Christendom or Europe.”

We live in strange times. We are able to cross the Atlantic in a few hours, when in our ancestors’ days such a journey was usually a life sentence. The pace of change is breakneck, and even the wary can be fooled by AI-generated news. But despite it all, each of us – particularly those of European descent, whether in the Mother Continent or in one of the settler countries overseas – are heirs to an extremely rich and deep heritage. Certain it is that the European peoples are separated by language, ethnicity, and version of Christianity from each other. But there is another division in, with, and under all the others: it is precisely which side of the ocean or the Urals they live on.

Read more

It has been almost a month since my last posting, and I really must apologise to you all. Extensive travel took me successively to Denmark, Poland, New England, New York, and Croatia, and I was a bit exhausted. I have something planned for you next week rather more in-depth, called “Deep Europe.”

But with Halloween so close, I figured to give you some light, pleasant reading. For those who want to go a bit more in depth on the topic in terms of background and celebration, I offer two books: Robert Haven Schauffler’s masterful Hallowe’en; its origin, spirit, celebration, and significance as related in prose and verse, together with Hallowe’en stories, plays, pantomimes; and suggestions for games, stunts, parties, feasts and decorations, and Elizabeth Guptill’s The Complete Hallowe’e’n Book. These should well serve to sate your desire for Halloween prose.

Now let’s look at some poems, starting with the question of October itself. My late friend, Ray Bradbury, produced an almost prose-poem of what he called, “The October Country,” declaring it to be “That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

Given that mood, let us now look at a long poem of Lovecraft’s dedicated to this month, which seems to touch all its various themes in his usual deft manner:

Read more

On 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk was gunned down. He was, like me, only a few weeks shy of his thirty-second birthday, just getting his life started. Happily married, a father of two, and poised to bring a career that had begun in the wilderness of college campuses to its next step, or even further. Not necessarily m…

Read more

O, my God, the Magyar bless
With Thy plenty and good cheer!
With Thine aid his just cause press,
Where his foes to fight appear.
Fate, who for so long did'st frown,
Bring him happy times and ways;
Atoning sorrow hath weighed down
Sins of past and future days.
—Hungarian National Anthem

Back in 2022, I received a letter from Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, naming me a “Friend of Hungary”. It is a distinction that I treasure – and always shall. Indeed, I do love Hungary, and its strange, wonderful, bewildering, and beguiling inhabitants – where else, save among Hungarians in Romania, could you find Unitarian bishops?

Moreover, I am particularly a friend of Mr Orbán’s Hungary, with all that it has done to revive both its own Christian nationhood and to act as a beacon for “Conservatism” around the globe. This is not least because I am aware of Mr Orbán’s own knowledge of the fleeting nature of our “Reagan Revolution”, and his desire to leave his country truly improved – and not merely a plateau on the way down, as – alas – Reagan’s efforts appear in hindsight to have been. Ronnie having been the first president I ever voted for, back in 1980 – the only president I ever met, and the focus at the time of so many of my own hopes for the United States – I sympathise profoundly with Mr Orbán’s reading of that time.

So it was that I was profoundly pleased when Melanie Raidl and Fabian Schmid included me in an article they wrote for the German paper of record, Der Standard, on 10 August 2025. Entitled How the Habsburgs and Viktor Orbán Form a Political Symbiosis, it had the interesting tagline: “Several members of the Habsburg family are committed to the Hungarian Prime Minister, some of them in official positions. This also fits ideologically.”

Read more

Now have good day, now have good day!
I am Christmas, and now I go my way.

Here have I dwelt with more and less
From Hallowtide till Candlemas,
And now must I from you hence pass;
Now have good day!

I take my leave of king and knight,
And earl, baron, and lady bright;
To wilderness I must me dight;
Now have good day!

And of the good lord of this hall
I take my leave, and of guests all;
Methink I hear Lent doth call;
Now have good day!

And from every worthy officer,
Marshall, panetere and butler,
I take my leave as for this year;
Now have good day!

Another year I trust I shall
Make merry in this hall,
If rest and peace in England may fall;
Now have good day!

But oftentimes I have heard say
That he is loath to part away
Who often biddeth “Have good day!”
Now have good day!

Now fare ye well, all in fere;
Now fare ye well for all this year;
Yet for my sake make ye good cheer;
Now have good day!

— Medieval English Candlemas Carol

Summer is at last making way for September, and I would be lying if I said I was unhappy. Now, it has been a very pleasant holiday, to be sure. I came back to Los Angeles, saw old friends, went to two weddings (one in South Carolina), toured the Province of Alberta, Canada, and wrote a good bit. Now the day of my return to Austria is looming – not a bad time at all (despite a two-week-long flu!).

But I must admit that ever since I left high school, summer with its heat – whether dry, as in California, or humid, as in New York and Austria – has been something primarily to be endured, despite the haunting strains of The Wild Mountain Thyme, much as I love that song. I wear seersucker and a boater, eat a lot of salads and chilled soups, and enjoy barbecues, bonfires and fireworks as much as anyone. But it is still to be got through, rather than an actual enjoyment for its own sake.

But then, at last, September arrives, and with it, autumn. In days gone by in America, the last weekend of summer featured a bonfire of straw Panama hats. White linen and seersucker were banished after Labour Day – the first Monday in September – not to be seen again until Memorial Day the following May. Autumn not only began the new school year, but also faintly presaged the coming period of celebration – Halloween at the end of October, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day in the mid-20th-century United States; ‘Hallowtide to Christmas’, with Christmas ending at Candlemas in the medieval iteration.

Read more

"Here's a health unto His Majesty,
With a fa la la la la la la,
Confusion to his enemies,
With a fa la la la la la la.

And he who would not drink his health,
We wish him neither wit nor wealth,
Nor yet a rope to hang himself.
With a fal lal la la la la la la la la,
With a fal lal la la la la la.

—Cavalier Song

This being the Golden Jubilee Year of His Majesty Charles V and IV, By the Grace of God of England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of His Other Dominions beyond the Seas, King; High King of All Ireland; Head of the Commonwealth; Defender of the Faith; it is fitting to look back and see how his various realms came to their present happy state. Certainly, things looked very different a half century ago to this and many other observers, although I was only a young, struggling journalist, not even out of my twenties back then.

That the Monarchy survived both the Anglo-Jihad and the Great Reaction was an enormous tribute to the diplomatic skills of His Majesty’s father, William V of happy memory. When he died and our current Sovereign assumed the throne, no older than I was, things looked bleak indeed. What with a uniformed general literally bivouacking at 10 Downing Street, the entire country under martial law, and Parliament sitting at the military’s pleasure, there seemed no decent way out. There had been no election in seven years, and the unicameral Commons only gathered when General Wilberforce needed them to go through the routine of voting in the latest budget – a quick sitting, given that no debate was permitted.

Although the question of a coronation was tabled for the immediate – no one could have foreseen then what actually did happen – the long-expected royal nuptials, postponed due to King William’s final illness, were the first matter of business for the new reign, almost as soon as the accession proclamations had ceased echoing throughout the Commonwealth; these had been simplified, with no promises to maintain the now disestablished Churches of England and Scotland. As with his great-grandmother’s wedding, the joy sparked by the prospect of the ceremony lifted a great many spirits – and as on that occasion, a great many ordinary people sent in their ration tickets to help brighten the ritual further. Charles IV, as he was called then – there had been some surprise, as with his grandfather’s accession, when he took that name rather than George VII; the more so since he had as Prince of Wales been known as George – was wildly popular. His bride, the much younger, beautiful, and glamorous Princess Maria Antonia, eldest daughter of Prince Josef Wenzel of Liechtenstein, sparked some comment as the first Catholic Queen since 1688. More than that, however, despite being her sonless father’s eldest daughter, his succession would pass to a male cousin. What she did receive, however, was his claim to the thrones of the Three Kingdoms as senior inheritor of the House of Stuart. Without a doubt, had that not been the case, the current situation in all the King’s realms would be very different today.

Read more

Furl that Banner! True, 'tis gory,
Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,
And 'twill live in song and story,
Though its folds are in the dust;
For its fame on brightest pages,
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages—
Furl its folds though now we must.

Furl that banner, softly, slowly!
Treat it gently—it is holy—
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not—unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!

—Fr. Abram Ryan, “The Conquered Banner.”

Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain!
My love, and native land, fareweel!
For I maun cross the main,
My dear,
For I maun cross the main.

…

When day is gone and night is come,
And a' folk bound to sleep,
I think on him that's far awa
The lee-lang night, and weep,
My dear,
The lee-lang night, and weep.

—Robert Burns, “It Was a’ for Our Rightful King.”

Recently I was at a wedding in Greenville, South Carolina – a part of the Palmetto State where I had never ventured before, Charleston being pretty much the only city there in which I had spent much time. I took the opportunity to visit the Museum and Library of the Confederacy in that town, run by the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The two gentlemen staffing the collection were welcoming and friendly, as well as knowledgeable about the collection. The pictures, weapons, banners, uniforms, and the like were preserved and displayed, and I can happily say it was an hour or so very well spent.

Of course, the very existence of such a museum, with its subject presented in a positive light, is now an intense source of controversy. I can remember when it was not so. In the earliest years of my memory, the Civil War Centennial was still going on – in the midst of the Civil Rights Era – and the emphasis was on the bravery of both sides in the bloodiest conflict Americans ever fought. After all, more of us died in that conflict than all the others combined – and many of us were civilians. Yet, despite Reconstruction and its legitimate son, Jim Crow, in 50 years’ time, the surviving elderly Confederate Veterans relived Pickett’s Charge by running down the hill literally into the arms of surviving Union Veterans. This national reconciliation after such a horrible conflict is perhaps without parallel in Western history, and were we a sane people, would rank as one of our greatest achievements – if not indeed our greatest. In other nations, it would be an endlessly bleeding wound, like Ulster.

A key ingredient in this incredible accomplishment was permitting each side to honour its heroes, and not to find fault and blame. But in recent years, the will to power on the part of the criminally stupid – never a negligible element amongst any political class – has led to a reopening of the old wounds. Physically represented by physical attacks on and removals of Confederate memorials and monuments, it is accompanied by – for want of a better word – intellectual attacks on what is characterised as “The Myth of the Lost Cause.” This is defined by Wikipedia, source of all truth, thusly: “The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, known simply as the Lost Cause or the Lost Cause Myth, is an American pseudo-historical and historical negationist myth that argues the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First articulated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism, gender roles, and religious attitudes in the Southern United States into the 21st century.” There is a lot of stupidity to unpack here. But before I do, I must in the interests of transparency make two admissions. The first is that my great great-grandfather, Frederic Coulombe, left his home in Rimouski, Quebec, and went to Lincoln, Maine, to enlist in the 9th Maine Volunteer Infantry in June of 1861. Present at Gettysburg, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and the Wilderness, he was severely wounded at Malvern Hill, and was a POW for a time; I am not eligible to join the SCV. Secondly, I share the view of such scholars as Kevin Phillips, who, in his The Cousins’ Wars, sees what was really our second civil war in what are now the United States as the last in a related series of conflicts that saw the transition of the Anglosphere from a remote kingdom at the edge of Christendom to a global goliath. The Confederate was only the last in a series of “Lost Causes,” the victory of any one of which might well have changed human history for the better.

Read more

God preserve, God protect,
Our Emperor, our Country!
Powerful through the support of the Faith,
He leads us with a wise hand!
Let us defend the Crown of his fathers,
Shielding it from every foe.
𝄆 Forever with the Habsburg Throne,
Austria's fate remains united. 𝄇

II

Devout and honest, true and open,
Let us stand for right and duty!
Let us, if needed, with joyous Hope,
Go courageously in the battle!
Mindful of the laurel wreaths,
That the army so often wove itself.

𝄆 Treasure and Blood for Our Emperor,
Treasure and Blood for Our Fatherland! 𝄇

III

What was wrought by the diligence of citizens,
May the soldier's power faithfully protect!
With cheery weapons of mind,
Arts and Science may triumph!
Blessings be granted into the Land,
And its fame match the blessings.
𝄆 God's sunshine in peace,
On a happy Austria! 𝄇

IV

Let us always stand together,
For in unity there is power!
With our combined strength,
The difficult is easily overcome!
Let us, brotherly united,
Go towards the same goal.
𝄆 Hail to the Emperor, Hail to the Empire,
Austria will forever stand! 𝄇

This is indeed a lovely national anthem. The countries who sang it before 1918 were all of what are now Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, with chunks of present-day Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Italy. This Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had a number of problems endemic to it, to be sure, of which the top was clearly the nationality issue – most definitely in Hungary, where the dominant ethnos was struggling to “Magyarise” the minorities, who together made up a majority. But none were insoluble, despite the maunderings of the victorious Nationalists of 1918, who naturally magnified them to justify their own treasonable activities during and after World War I.

That terrible year not only saw a prospective Saint driven from the country’s throne, it saw the formation of successor states whose new rulers unconsciously prepared the way for the bloodbath of the Second World War, the living death of the Soviet Bloc, and the lingering instability and difficulty of the region to-day. As against their sloganeering, all the Habsburgs had to offer were two things: legitimate authority exercised out of love for their subjects, and a system that actually worked.

To-day, when one travels through the former Monarchy – from Tyrol to Transylvania, from Czechia to Croatia – he encounters a remarkable similarity of culture and attitudes that transcends the national boundaries in place since 1918. For all that Austria-Hungary was an incredible mishmash of cultures and religions, it had a remarkable uniformity; this was a product of the dominance of Catholicism, and the House of Habsburg. Despite the disastrous aftermath of independence, World War II, and Communism, the mark of the double eagle remains everywhere in those lands over which it once presided. It is my contention that those countries shall never be mentally whole or psychologically stable until some form of unity presided over by the Head of the House is restored, for all that it cannot be the old Austria-Hungary. So let us look at some remnants of the Monarchy to-day, and then speculate as to what the future might hold.

Read more

May thy service united ne'er sever,
But hold to the colors so true;
The Army and Navy forever,
Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!

𝄆 Three cheers for the red, white, and blue! 𝄇

The Army and Navy forever,
Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.

—Thomas A’Becket, “Columbia The Gem of the Ocean”

“Old Glory”, “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “The Stars and Stripes” – these are all sobriquets for the flag of the United States of America, the anniversary of whose origin by Congressional fiat on 14 June 1777 we are celebrating as I write these words. The Congressional resolution: “That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” This new constellation has waved – rarely challenged until 1860, and then again after 1865 – over the ever-expanding land of the free, her possessions, and overseas bases, diplomatic offices, and military cemeteries.

This Flag Day, of course, the streets of Los Angeles are filled with the red, white, and green flag of Mexico – a flag which, in its Imperial version, I am rather fond of. But rather than saluting the memories of the great Emperors Agustin and Maximilian, the Mexican flag-wavers were attempting to protest the current president – unintentionally lending support to those who share Mr Trump’s views of the dangers of immigration.

All of this was under the umbrella of a nationwide “No Kings” movement – again directed against the president, and couched in terms of the American myth that monarchy is an inherent evil. Of course, neither side employing similar narratives really knows what they are talking about – but why should they? Americans don’t need or want true history. This is sad, of course, because if there are remedies to our increasingly shrill national division, their roots must be sought in that very history.

Read more

Whist! here comes His Grace's carriage, 'twill be lunch time by and by,
An' I dasn't drink another—though me throat is powerful dry;
For I've got to meet th' Archbishop—I'm a laborer now no more,
But ohone, those were fine times then, lad, an' to talk o' 'em makes me sore
An' whisper—there's times, I tell you, when I'd swap this easy chair,
An' the velvit coat an' the footman, wid his Sassenach nose in the air,
An' th' Lord Archbishop himself, too, for a drink o' the days that ha' been,
For the taste o' a mornin's mornin' in Shanahan's ould shebeen!

— Gerald Brennan, “A Mornin’s Mornin’.”

A bit of time has passed since my last entry – and I must give my deepest apologies. As some compensation, Royal Court members must be advised that for those of you so inclined, our first unofficial and informal gathering shall be in October. Please let me know if you might be in Vienna at that time, and I’ll put you all in touch with one another and the details can be worked out. The release of not one but two books in a month made me far busier than usual!

The big story since last we convened has been the advent of Pope Leo XIV, and in the United States the threatened banning of the Latin Mass (both Tridentine and Novus Ordo) by Bishop Martin of Charlotte. At the same time, the political situation in in both Europe, America, and the other daughter countries becomes ever shriller. This weekend, my longtime home of Los Angeles has erupted in riot over the attempt to expel illegal immigrants.

In American politics one is supposed to support either side full and uncritically, and erupt in hysterical anger at anyone with whom we disagree – for the sake of leaders whom we shall never know, and who having more in common with each other than with most of the citizenry they dominate. The Catholic internet is filled with self-appointed inquisitors of every shrillness exceeds their knowledge. What are we to do to stay sane in this insanity?

Read more

Dear friends,

My new book, The Compleat Monarchist, is now available from Os Justi Press. You may not agree with me, but I hope it stimulates your own thinking.

With best wishes,

Charles A. Coulombe

Purchase The Compleat Monarchist

Read more

Editor’s Note: N. M. Friar is a young Indian convert, very well known to me, who has already distinguished himself academically in both his home country and elsewhere. As a native Bengali and convert to Catholicism, as well as an academically trained historian, he has a great deal to offer on questions regarding East and West, globalisation and the like, and we are very proud to present him here.

This is part one of a two-part essay containing my personal reflections on liturgical inculturation and historiographical prejudices.

I.

We moderns are eager to condemn. The academic more than most. It isn’t too much of an exaggeration to say that very often academic historians are little better than scolds. This attitude is born not of the sensus iustitiae that all men share; the animating spirit is something different.

In most cases, the critic’s posture is no longer one of careful discernment, but of indictment. We don’t seek to understand, but to expose, to humiliate. Our ancestors become as mounted specimens, and the past morphs into a tableau of moral failures in whose unwholesome light the historian can gloat. What we lose in this transaction is not only context but compassion. At best, it is preening; at worst, a ceaseless trial without hope of mercy.

This wouldn’t have been as much of a problem were the standards for judgement clear. Inquisitions we can understand. A struggle session we can adapt to. But to say in the same breath that we have transcended all judgement and also that the historian must judge – never say so aloud? That is, as the saying goes, a bit much.

Read more

God bless America, land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

—Irving Berlin

Our last instalment was spent attempting to debunk the widely held belief – maintained by such as columnist David Brooks and a great many others – that the United States of America are only worthy of our love if they are “good” – whatever that may mean. For Mr Brooks, President Trump’s treatment of our allies has caused him to feel that we have lost our “goodness.” My assertion was that we never had it, in the sense that he and so many others mean it. Of course, these are folk who drank deeply at the well of our American civic religion. For others, long-term meditation on the European-Americans’ ultimately victorious struggle with the Indian tribes and the practice of slavery have led to the adoption of Wokery – so far from being the “Shining City on the Hill” and the “Last Best Hope of Mankind” as once taught, these United States are the worst country that ever was, founded as they are on genocide, and built by slaves. Thus, Wokery emerges as a sort of Unitarian revolt against American Exceptionalism, as Unitarianism rose out of and broke away from Calvinism.

As a result, neither those of Mr Brooks’ persuasion nor the Woke are keen on celebrating this country’s 250th anniversary – leaving it entirely either to Mr Trump’s supporters who retain the old national faith, and to re-enactors at the specific places where those momentous events occurred, starting with Boston, Lexington, Concord, Arlington, and a few other towns in Massachusetts. For many, realisation that either the nation’s past or present does not live up to some set or other of abstract ideals (which themselves may or may not be true) has destroyed their patriotism.

Read more

Pope Francis is dead. These are words I have expected to write for a long time. Despite a pontificate filled with actions that to me ranged from the merely nasty to the bordering-upon-heretical, it brings me no pleasure to write them. I can only pray that God will have mercy upon the soul of the late pontiff, as I hope He shall have it upon mine. But if this action brings me no joy, it saddens me that it does not really sadden me either.

Read more

PART I

I had intended to write something very different this week; as it stands I fear we’ll have to wait until mid-May to explore Austria-Hungary. I am leaving for three weeks on April 16 to do some touring around Britain which be the source of my writing until my return hither. I have been distracted this week by an article in the May Atlantic by David Brooks. Derided by some as the New York Times’ “pet Conservative,” he is in actuality a thoughtful man, not given to hyperbole as a rule. His article, entitled, “I Should Have Seen This Coming,” the articles tagline is “When I joined the conservative movement in the 1980s, there were two types of people: those who cared earnestly about ideas, and those who wanted only to shock the left. The reactionary fringe has won.”

Now, this article appears when the United States are about to begin the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the American Revolution and the origins of our political system. In contrast to the enormous hoopla of a half-century around the Bicentennial (which I remember very well) there is (unless you live in Eastern Massachusetts, where the commemorations shall begin this Easter Weekend), there is a strange silence about the whole thing. The Woke not wanting to celebrate is truly a no-brainer both senses -the California Legislature voted down a measure to form a State Semiquincentennial Commission. But the two plaintive first paragraphs are illustrative of a deeper problem afflicting many in our nation to-day:

“Charles de Gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: ‘All my life I have had a certain idea about France.’ Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.”

Read more

Gil-galad was an elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing;
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.

His sword was long, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.

But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.

—J.R.R. Tolkien

Although the United Kingdom, Spain, the three Scandinavian countries, and the Benelux nations remain as sorts of “crowned republics, ironically it is the smaller Monarchies of Europe (Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Holy See, and the Order of Malta) where Monarchs retain something of their traditional power. The rest of the Continent is divided up by a number of republics, whose generally worthless politicians fit the usual mode. But the Monarchies they displaced left a great deal behind in terms of customs, manners, religion, and buildings—to say nothing of the very organs of State themselves. Often enough, the heirs of the various thrones continue to fulfil various public roles. In this article, we shall explore a number of such, bearing in mind that what we perceive as last remnants may one day be the foundation stones of a new and better order. The first we shall look at, in a real sense (barring Armenia, Georgia, or Ethiopia) is the Granddaddy of all Christian Kingdoms—the Christian Empire prefigured by Constantine’s conversion in 312, and sealed by Theodosius the great in 380. In 494, Pope St. Gelasius I addressed the following letter to Emperor Anastasius, which laid down the relationship between Pope and Emperor:

Indeed, there are two means, August Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled: the sacred authority (auctoritas sacrata) of the priests and the royal power (regalis potestas). Of these, how much greater is the responsibility of the priests, in that they even have to render an account for the kings of men at the divine judgment. You also know, most merciful son, that though you preside over a human office, as a devout man you nevertheless bend your neck to the rectors of divine things and await from them the reasons of your salvation. And in their taking up the heavenly sacraments and distributing them, as is appropriate, you recognize that you should be subordinate to the priestly order rather than rule over it, and so in these things you depend on their judgment and do not wish to bend them to your will. For if, to the degree that it pertains to the order of public discipline, the ministers of religion also obey your laws, recognizing the power of command attributed to you by divine disposition—lest their own judgments, which are excluded from worldy affairs, are seen to stand in the way [of them]—with what fitting readiness, I beseech you, should you not yield obedience to those who are assigned those venerable religious rites?

The Empire: Roman, Holy, Byzantine, Or What?

When Constantine converted to Catholicism, and when Theodosius the Great made it the State Religion of the Empire, the Catholic Empire was born. After Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 AD, it was agreed that there was once again only one Emperor—the one in Constantinople. All of the European kingdoms that grew up o formerly Imperial soil—or expanded and were called into being through Baptism in neighbouring areas where the legions had never gone considered themselves likewise. But Pope St. Leo III resurrected the Western Empire when he crowned Bl. Charlemagne. The relationship between the two Emperors was exacerbated by the Great Schism of 1054—and within a century, the Kings of France—asserting their succession to Charlemagne also claimed a certain independence from the HRE. Nevertheless, both Empires still used the Double Eagle. The Byzantine Empire was snuffed out by the Turks in 1453, the HRE severely weakened by the Protestant revolt, and then de facto ended—though not de jure—in 1806. The Habsburgs and Romanoffs for various reasons laid claim to the Imperial inheritance, but they lost their thrones in 1917 and 1918. But the founders of the EU invoked the crown of Charlemagne.

Read more