without any intention of contravening the laws of the realm. The custom of the Placet has been so universally observed in every independent kingdom in Europe, where it has not been especially relaxed by the municipal law, that it has been held by writers of the highest note* to form a part of those customs, the aggregate of which make up the Law of Nations. The Exequatur has also been accounted to be so intimately and essentially connected with royal majesty, that no prince can abdicate or renounce it to the prejudice of his successor and the State.†

The exercise, indeed, of the right may be suspended on the part of the Crown, as is virtually the case at present in the dominions of the Emperor of Austria since the ordinance of last year, but the right can never be alienated from the Crown without its abdi

cating its territorial sovereignty. With respect, however, to the publication of the present Brief, the history of the Bull of Paul V., "In Cœna Domini,” is not without a moral. In that celebrated Bull, issued in 1567, and re-issued in 1568, the publication of which has been expressly forbidden by the Stateauthorities in almost every kingdom of Europe, there was a special provision, "Quod sola publicatio Romæ facta sufficiat." All the Christian world was, in fact, to obey it, without any publication beyond that made in Rome; but it was further enjoined that every year, on Holy Thursday, it should be read from the pulpit,

* Cf. Van Espen de Promulgatione Legum Ecclesiasticorum, part II. ch. 1.

† Cf. Schram, Institutiones Juris Ecclesiastici Germanici, § 136.; Rechberger, Enchiridion Juris Ecclesiastici Austriaci, § 272. These authors amongst others are quoted in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the Regulations of Roman Catholic Subjects in Foreign States, 25th June, 1816.

F

in all parishes, to the people*, and copies of it should be affixed to the doors of the Churches. We have therefore in this Bull a formal instance of the mode of publication, as enjoined to be adopted in a foreign country where the law of the land did not allow the free publication of Papal Rescripts; and in accordance with that received mode, we find that the Brief of Pope Pius IX. has been read in England to the people from the pulpit of the Roman Catholic church of St. George's, Southwark. So much for the open publication of it to the subjects of her Majesty within her realm of England.

Let us now proceed to consider the subject-matter of the Brief, for, although the Pope himself may have formally respected the established practice, and not have in words directed his Letters to be published within the realm of an independent Queen without her consent, or rather against her expressed will, as recorded amongst the written Laws of her realm, yet the substance of his Letters may involve in their operation a departure from established practice, and in that respect violate the sovereign rights of the Imperial Crown of England. Now it is patent on the face of the Letters, that the Pope has erected one archiepiscopal and twelve episcopal Sees in the realm of her Majesty Queen Victoria, and has parcelled out the entirety of her realm into thirteen districts, assigning to each Bishop a portion of the Queen's territory as subject to his jurisdiction. The instrument could not have been externally more complete, if the Queen of England had placed her realm at the disposal of the Holy See for all ecclesiastical purposes, nor could the Pope have dealt with his own territory in a more free

* Cf. Giannone, Storia di Napoli, lib. xxxiii. ch. 4. and 5., in which the Regium Placitum is very fully discussed, Appendix, p. ciii.

and absolute manner. But if there be any one principle of law which has received the sanction of that high usage and practice which constitutes it a binding obligation on all the powers of Christendom, it is this, that the Pope cannot set up the See of a Bishop within the territory of an independent prince without his consent. Common sense suggests, that none other than the sovereign power of the land can give a Bishop a Seat within the land. The Pope may give a Bishop mission, i. e. may authorise him to go forth as the spiritual ambassador of the Holy See, but that the Pope should establish a territorial Seat for his Bishop in the realm of a Sovereign Power without its consent, would be to usurp an attribute of local sovereignty, and to take possession of the land for ecclesiastical purposes. For it matters not that the possession is only formal and figurative, for such is also, for the most part, the character of civil occupation. are for such purposes taken to represent things. But Words the Pope has not been content merely to declare his will to erect Sees, he has gone further. He has sent his subject, a Prince of his Court, to take effective possession of his See, and to execute such acts as serve for external signs to mark his ecclesiastical occupation of the land. All that is now required to establish an irrefragable title is, that the Sovereign of the Land should acquiesce in the settlement of the Cardinal.

It must not be lost sight of, that the authority which has issued the decree upon which her Majesty's subjects are encouraged to act, is a foreign authority. It is a foreign voice which speaks in the Brief: there is a foreign name prefixed to it, which holds a recognised position amongst the sovereign Powers of Europe; the edict itself is dated from a foreign capital,

and it is subscribed by the minister of a foreign Power. It is idle to say that England ignores diplomatically that Power. True it may be that England has held no regular diplomatic intercourse with the Holy See, but England was a party to the Treaty of Vienna, and therein recognised, by the 103rd Article, the Holy See as one of the Sovereign Powers of Europe; and the absence of diplomatic intercourse cannot affect the question. Denmark, for instance, has no regular diplomatic intercourse with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Several of the sovereign princes of Europe have no diplomatic agents at the Ottoman Porte; and Rome herself has no diplomatic relations with Sweden, or Saxony, or Denmark, &c.*; but these Powers do not thereby ignore one another, or cease to have the reciprocal rights and duties towards one another, which attach to them in common with the other members of the great European Family of Nations, by the Common Law. It is only within the last twenty years that the Ottoman Porte has abandoned its objection to send regular diplomatic agents to the courts of the great European Powers. But the Ottoman Porte was not theretofore ignored either by Prince or Pontiff. This circumstance then cannot derogate from the mutual rights and obligations of Sovereign Powers as such; they can only be affected by some special practice, which may have established an exceptional case. Such a special practice did exist at one time in regard to Turkey herself, and her dependencies, the Barbary powers; but the latter states have almost disappeared from the catalogue of nations, and Turkey is every

* It is assumed that consuls are not diplomatic agents, otherwise England might be said to have maintained diplomatic intercourse with Rome for many years.

day assimilating her practice to the custom of Europe. So also, in regard to the Holy See, it cannot be denied that a special practice has obtained in Europe with regard to its relations with the various Sovereign Powers growing out of the complex character of the Holy See, and the union of ecclesiastical with civil power in the person of the Roman Pontiff; but that practice is as well defined as any other portion of the public Law of Europe, and the Holy See can claim no privilege within the dominions of a foreign Power or in relation to his subjects, which does not rest either upon treaty or usage. If this were not the case, then the Roman Pontiff would be Lord Paramount over all temporal Powers. That the Roman Pontiff, however, is not exempt from the general law, may be gathered from the annals of Europe, which supply us with a host of conventions and diplomatic negotiations between the Holy See and the Great Powers, in matters where the sovereignty of the latter barred the free ecclesiastical action of the Holy See. These treaties and negotiations serve as a sort of text-book for this particular branch of the Law of Nations; and where this textbook is confirmed by usage, there the Holy See must be expected to conform, if it does not wish to place itself out of the pale of the law.

Now the text law, so to speak, as to the erection of Episcopal Sees and the creation of Bishops in countries in communion with the See of Rome, is fully set forth by Thomassinus in his Vetus et Nova Ecclesiæ Disciplina, pt. 1. 1. i. c. 54—58. It appears, as an historical fact, that during the five first centuries of the Christian era, the Royal authority took no part in the creation of Bishoprics, neither was the Pope of Rome, as such, allowed any right of supreme spiritual superintend