Tyranny or liberty?

Caesar retold as Church history

Liberty, freedom! Tyranny is dead!

A handful of men decided to kill Caesar and overthrow the government, this wasn’t the will of the people but the choices of a select few conspirators. Conspirators close to power, close enough to steal it.

As Americans, this is in contrast to our own movement towards Independence. Our movement was one that restored God-given rights, rights that royals and nobles in England had slowly chipped away over centuries. When the skirmishes broke out at first between colonists and the Empire, all the colonies had representatives unite and declare independence. It was the will of the people, moved by divine Providence, to form a new nation under God. A story very different from the one William Shakespeare tells in Julius Caesar.

Allegory of the Church

As we’ve talked earlier, the story William Shakespeare tells in Julius Caesar is an allegory of the fall of the English church and the circumstances that led to a new State institution, the Anglican church. When English royals and nobles and churchmen schemed and connived to overthrow the Church, it was a revolution done by the country’s elites, not the people. Yes, it wasn’t the people in England who desired to leave the Church, it was the king and his henchman. The royals and nobles of England coveted the wealth of the Church for themselves, and overthrew the Church for a decree of divorce and unfettered access to the Church’s lands, buildings, artwork, gold and silver, wealth amassed over a thousand years by the people of England.

And at this moment of betrayal, when Henry stabbed the Church in the back and announced his own State church, Henry had to get his propaganda machine running to convince the people to go along with the will of the elites, and somehow sever loyalty to the ancient Church, the bride of Christ. As Shakespeare tells us, the conspirators hit the streets with cries of “Peace, freedom, and liberty.”

They framed murder with words of liberty. The same thing happens today, phrases like “Planned Parenthood” hide the ugly evil of making parenthood impossible, and slogans like “Pro-choice” mask the ugly sin of murdering innocents.

Cassius convinces the conspirators that these usurpers, evil-doers, and murders will instead be remembered as reformers and liberators. He says the people will say,

So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be called
The men that gave their country liberty.

This was the cry of Henry’s Protestant reformers, that they would be remembered as men who freed their country from the clutches of the Church and restored their country to liberty. But what freedom did the Anglican church offer? None. Now to advance in England (e.g., enter public office or go to university) you had to make vows to the State against your faith, against the ancient faith of your fathers. All who wouldn’t would be banished. Exiled.

Henry’s reformation lead to tyranny and death, not life and liberty.

Reality of the Church

And what of Mark Antony? The priest of Caesar who stands as Shakespeare’s symbol of the Church, the apostate priests torn between the whims of the tyrant king and the truth of the Church. The priests were torn between riches and loyalty to the King of England or suffering and loyalty to the King of the Jews. It’s not like the King of England started a new church with his own wealth, no he usurped the ancient church of his ancestors and like any South American dictator nationalized an independent entity. Henry creates a new government institution by nationalizing the beloved bride of our Savior. He stole another man’s bride.

This earthly king required that all Englishman obey him, at the cost of their lives. Those who disagreed with Henry the VIII were either impoverished, imprisoned, or impaled, and to remain Catholic would be risking one’s life. Many martyrs were made in England at this time.

And many fell away from the faith, starting with the Bishops and Priests. Shakespeare chronicles their situation through the character of Mark Antony. Let’s take a close look at the interchange in Act 3, Scene 1 of Mark Antony’s servant and Brutus. Mark Antony had fled amazed when Caesar was betrayed, and his servant returns to find out the conspirators plans.

Servant (kneeling) Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel.
Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down,
And being prostrate, thus he bade me say:
Brutus (Henry) is noble, wise, valiant, and honest.
Caesar (the Church) was mighty, bold, royal, and loving.
Say I love Brutus, and I honor him.
Say I feared Caesar, honored him, and loved him.
If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony
May safely come to him, and be resolved
How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead
So well as Brutus living, but will follow
The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus
Thorough the hazards of this untrod state,
With all true faith. So says my master Antony.

Brutus Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman,
I never though him worse.
Tell him, so please him come unto this place
He shall be satisfied and, by my honor,
Depart untouched.

Any English bishop or priest who wanted security of his earthly life had to act like Mark Antony. A tyrannical king usurps the Church, if they wanted to live, they had to make a deal. In the case of Catholics in Henry’s England, some apostatized with the king to save their earthly lives and further their earthly prospects. And many did so. And the king considered these the “valiant Romans” and was more than willing to accept their apostasy. In fact, demanded it.

The State church would be built off the bones of the true Church.

It’s not the same, but our recent memory of Covid mandates had similar types of agreements with government and people to be made. If you wanted a job, you had to get jabs. Some could refuse, but they would do so at pains of banishment and exile from society. Jabs for jobs. Jobs only for the jabbed. Many felt a little of the anxiety some may have felt hundreds of years ago. Granted, of course, nowhere near as severe. And thanks be to God, and the divine rights enshrined in our Constitution, and the work of many patriots, many didn’t live out the drastic scenarios that Catholics would have lived in Henry’s England and centuries thereafter. But the patterns are the same, even if not as severe. The government of elites attempt to steal away the God-given rights and freedoms of the people while enriching themselves with material wealth.

Though Mark Antony did what he needed to survive, at seeing Caesar’s corpse he couldn’t withhold his thoughts,

O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.

Remembering the Church

As Hilaire Belloc says, “Europe is the Church and the Church is Europe.” The same could be said of England. Caesar brought the edges of the Roman Empire to England in the decades before Christ’s birth while Claudius brought England into the Empire (the Province Britannia) in the time of the Acts of the Apostles.

Legend says Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the man who brought Christ’s body down from the cross and placed it in his tomb, brought the gospel to England. A little later, Saint Gregory the Great revitalized the gospel in England while Rome was falling into ruin when he sent monks under the leadership of Saint Augustine to evangelize the Anglos of England and set up the bishopric of Canterbury.

From here, the Church would bloom for a thousand years in England, bringing to merry England prayer, monasteries, hospitals, universities, joy, learning, and most important, love of God, Mary, neighbor, Church, and country. It was the Church who taught England to be glorious, and in the end it was the Church Henry had to destroy if he wanted to turn England into an Empire. And he did.

With his Oath of Supremacy, universities the Church started would now be barred from admitting churchmen, an ironic twist of true ingratitude.

In the play Julius Caesar, Brutus states the reasons for the betrayal of the Church to the people, it was for love of country and because of ambition.

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ (that is, Henry) love to Caesar (that is, the Church) was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more (that is, not that I loved the Church less, but that I loved England more). Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him. But as we was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

Henry loved the Church, only he loved England more. That was his line. And Caesar (the Church) was “slain for ambition.” A classic case of projection, accuse the other side of what you yourself do. This was an ambition that the audience already knows that Caesar didn’t possess, only the conspirators who hated Caesar. In the first scenes of the play we are told how Caesar thrice refused the Crown, as Antony says, was this ambition?

True ambition wasn’t seen in the Church that built England, it was seen in the royals and nobles who coveted her wealth. True ambition was banning the Church from the country, stealing her wealth and killing her people. The propaganda and lies whitewashed these truths with cries of “liberty, freedom! Tyranny is dead!” In fact, tyranny was only just beginning. Henry would prove a tyrant worse than the emperors of old.

Again, the patterns are the same. Elites commit evil acts in the name of good things. And they control the propaganda to keep truth from the people, framing the narrative with the lies they prefer be told to the masses. This is why Shakespeare’s canon is so important, he recorded the truth in times of censorship.

We are in the time of judges, where good is named evil and evil is called good. Shakespeare lived in similar times and his plays call out truth during those confusing times where lies are the norm and censorship common. He helped Catholic play-going audiences cherish the ancient religion of their ancestors.

The stories of Shakespeare teach us the true history of Catholic England, revealing truths found in the Sacred Scriptures. If your revolution is begun by acts of evil, then what comes from it won’t be divine but diabolical. If you coerce people to be injected by censoring truth, the ends are demonic. If you start a new State church by stealing from the true Church, this isn’t a movement of God.

Thankfully, we know our all-powerful God is able “to work for good in everything for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” And though Catholics in England suffered greatly, our God takes on our sufferings and offers salvation.

As American Catholics, we can be especially thankful for Shakespeare as he chronicles the truths for us to see important American values and their Catholic origins, things like the separation of Church and State and our divine rights revealed in human rights.

And we see the truth about the English royal usurpation of the Church, which make our Independence from that State church just a little more sweet.

May those with ears to hear, hear Shakespeare.