Note 134 — Book the Fourth

It should be said that loyalty to the Stewarts, as it has been here entreated of, implies no shadow of disloyalty to the present Royal House of England. The law of Prescriptive Right by itself would be sufficient to require the most dutiful allegiance on the part of all the subjects of Her Most Sacred Majesty the late Queen-Empress. But it may be said further, that, as far as Roman Catholics are concerned, the most ingeniously scrupulous conscience can have no possible doubt about its obligation, since the Lord Leo P.P. XIII accorded that formal Recognition of the late Queen’s Majesty as Queen, by the presence of an Apostolic Ablegate at the Jubilee of 1887. In the course of this book the immense importance which sovereigns of the Borgian Era attached to this Recognition has been shewn. They were ready to fight for it, knowing that without it they could not hope to stand. In the present instance it was not even asked for; and its spontaneous granting by the Roman Pontiff should emphasize the fact that, what formerly might have been a matter for discussion, is now an imperative religious duty, namely, undeviating loyalty to the Royal and Imperial Dynasty of Queen Victoria.