Life of Cardinal Manning, archbishop of Westminster

Front matter

BV

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Chapter I Birth And Parentage — Home And School

1807-1821

Henry Edward Manning was born at Copped Hall, Hertfordshire, on the 15th of July 1807.^ He was the youngest son of William Manning, M.P., and of Mary his wife. His father, who was born 1st December 1763, was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Abel Smith, banker of Nottingham, and sister of Robert, created Lord Carrington. Of this marriage there were two daughters : Elizabeth, who died unmarried; and Mary, who was married to Major-General Thomas Carey, of the Guernsey family of that name. About three years after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth, William Manning married secondly, in 1792, Mary, the daughter of Henry Leroy Hunter of Beech Hill, Reading. William Manning died in 1835, and was buried at Sundridge, Kent, where Mary, his wife, who was born 4th July 1771, and died 12th May 1847, was likewise buried. Four sons and four daughters were the issue of the second marriage. Henry, the youngest, enjoyed the benefit of having many brothers and sisters.

The early years of the future Cardinal were spent in his father's home, first at Totteridge, and then at Combe Bank, near Sundridge, Kent, As the youngest child he was his mother's darling and somewhat spoilt. His favourite and constant companion before he went to

1 See Note A at end of the volume.

VOL. I ^ B

Harrow was his sister Harriet. His other brothers and sisters were much older, and before Henry had reached a companionable age they had dispersed from his father's home ; one brother and one sister had died, and two sisters had married. The early death of his favourite sister Harriet was the first trial to a loving heart — later on so sorely tried — the first death he had witnessed, for when his eldest brother William died, Henry was scarcely five.^ The first hindrance or stumbling-block to the spiritual life of the future Cardinal was the delay of nearly two years in his baptism. Strange to say, in his numerous records, journals, and note-books, full of references to and recollections of his early days and of the circumstances of his home life at Totteridge, Cardinal Manning, unlike his old friend and contemporary, the late Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St. Andrews,^ so strict on the point of early baptism, makes no allusion to the fact that he was left unbaptized from the day of his birth, 15th of July 1807, to the 25th of May 1809. Henry Edward Manning was baptized in the church of St. Martin -in-the- Fields, London, by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The following is the transcript of Cardinal Manning's baptismal registry : ^' Register of Baptisms, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 25th May 1809, Henry Edward Manning, son of William Manning, Esq., and Mary his wife, born 15th July." The year was omitted : the column of births was headed 1809 : there were other dates entered, one preceding that of Manning's register by three or four was " 1806." In those days the name of the priest or bishop who conferred the sacrament of baptism was not recorded in the register as it is now. The fact that Henry Edward was baptized by the Bishop of Bath and Wells is to be found in the family records. In like manner, more than a year after her birth, his sister Harriet was baptized by the Bishop of Gloucester.

1 William Manning, born July 1793, died 1812.

2 The late Charles Wordsworth, in the Annals of my Early Life, dilates with satisfaction on the blessing which he and his brothers enjoyed on receiving early baptism.

I BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 3

Mr. William Manning, in those days at the height of his prosperity, was not a little prone to ostentation ; ^ and his ambition was not satisfied apparently unless he had a bishop to baptize his children. The convenience of so important a personage had, of course, to be studied, and that may account for the delay. In those days and even in a generation later, as Keble bears witness, there was great laxity in regard to the early baptism of children.

William Manning occupied Copped Hall, Totteridge, soon after his marriage in 1792, in the first instance as tenant ; subsequently he purchased it. This first home for eight years of his life left so deep and abiding an impression upon his heart and mind, that sixty-five years afterwards Cardinal Manning gave the following vivid account of it in a letter addressed to Mrs. Austen, his sole surviving sister: — ^

Archbishop's House, Westminster, S.W.,

My dear Caroline — I must tell you of a visit I made yesterday.

Our old home at Totteridge, after passing through the hands of the Halls, Marjoribanks, and Lord Lytton, belongs now to Mr. Boulton. He invited me to come and see it, and I went yesterday afternoon for three hours.

The house has been enlarged and ornamented, but the old interior remains. I went all over it. The gardens are enlarged and greatly improved, but the old outlines remain, — a new conservatory where the old was, the dairy unchanged, the rosary — but another and larger beyond it. In front of the house the iron fence is moved far down the field, so as to make a level terrace before the windows, and then a bank and a lower lawn. The trees are preserved everywhere, and are very fine. A garden road runs down all round the water, and returns to the west of the house. I do not know when I have seen anything so beautiful within so small a space. But what interested me most is the memories of my dear father and mother. They knew all

1 William Manning was in the habit of driving every morning from Totteridge to the city, a distance of eight miles, in a coach and four, somewhat after the style and fashion of his kinsman, "Bob" Smith, well known in his day.

2 Mrs. Austen, who survived her brother, Cardinal Manning, nearly twe years, died at the end of the year 1893, in her 93rd year.

4 CAHDINAL MANNING chap.

about her laying out the garden, and told me that when the brook Dolis was widened out into the lake, as it is called, my mother is said to have spread sheets over the fields to see where the view of the water would be best seen from the house.

They showed me the clump planted by my father in 1810, for the King's Jubilee (G. III.), and the oaks on the lawn, said to be planted by my father and each one of us. True enough there are seven, the eighth is gone.^ They stand so —

• • • (wanting).

I told them of " Creasy " ^ climbing up to the owl's nest in the avenue and tumbling down. They asked me to point out the tree ; I fixed on the second, or third, near the house. They told me that in the second tree there is a family of owls to this day. So we go, and the owls remain. The little boudoir between the library and the conservatory has a stained glass window. The border blue, with roses on green, and the crossings green. My memory is that our brother William did it, and that he painted the roses, can you remember ? Mr. Boulton said he hoped you would come and see Totteridge. I told him that you would be most glad if it were possible.

The family is most pleasing, highly educated, with a genius for music.

I hope you are well. — Believe me always your affectionate brother, H. E., C. A.

In this home, described in his old age with such graphic touches of pathos and playfulness, the boy had grown up amidst pleasant surroundings and in loving companionship, under a father's eye and a mother's tender care. This home of his boyhood, to which the Cardinal ever looked back with love and reverence, was one of those happy homes which are to be found scattered up and down in such rich and blessed profusion all over the country, in park and village and hamlet, in busy town even, and crowded city — homes which are in literal truth not only the joy, but the real honour and glory of England — the classic land of happy domestic life.

Mr. S. B. Boulton of Copped Hall, Totteridge, has, at

1 Martha, one of the eight " planters " of the oaks, died early. 2 Creasy was one of the old domestics or farm labourers.

I BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 5

my request, given the following interesting reminiscences of Cardinal Manning's first visit to his old home : —

My first personal acquaintance with the Cardinal arose from my being informed that he had expressed a strong desire to revisit my house, the place of his birth, Copped Hall, Totteridge, I accordingly sent him an invitation, which he cordially accepted. I found that he described this first visit very graphically, and at some length, in a letter which he wrote at the time to his sister, Mrs. Austen, which letter, by the courtesy of that lady, was shown to me after his death. He took a lively interest in the house, and in various features of the state, showing an astonishing memory as to details, considering that he had not seen the place for more than seventy years. He pointed out the room in which he was born, told me correctly where certain doors formerly stood, the position of which I had altered, also the suppression of a door in the Tapestry Room. He pointed out the spot whereon his uncle, when he was a child, read to the assembled family the first news of the Battle of Waterloo, and the list of officers killed and wounded. He showed in the avenue an old elm tree, which was, during his father's lifetime, and still is, the abode of white owls, relating how one of his father's labourers fell down from it and broke his leg in trying to procure him a young owlet from the nest. The seven trees on the lawn planted for seven members of the Manning family, and the stained-glass window placed in a corridor by his eldest brother, are described in his letter to Mrs. Austen already alluded to. I took him to see the spinney planted by his father in commemoration of the jubilee year of George III.; and also the " Lake," a piece of ornamental water of about four and a half acres, laid out by his mother ; also the summer-house in which Bulwer Lytton wrote some of his novels. He also visited the church, and gave the history of the picture by Peters which hangs there, and which was presented by his father ; and he pointed out in the churchyard the tombs of his grandfather and of his eldest brother.

The village church at Totteridge in which the future Cardinal first took part in public worship, has no pretensions to architectural beauty ; its services which were, as was but too common in those days of religious slackness, infrequent and slovenly in character, left no impress on his youthful mind. Over the communion-table, as the altar was called in those days, hung for a long time a picture representing a cluster of cherubs. It was generally supposed that William Manning's children were the original, and the more imaginative even detected in the smallest cherub a likeness to Henry Edward. The delusion was only dissipated in after years, when the fact leaked out that William Manning had won the picture at a lottery in London. Mr. William Manning was a munificent patron of church and parish work. In one of the lists of local charities is the following entry — "- Master Henry Edward Manning, Is." In this church there are the tombs of the Cardinal's grandfather, who died in 1791, and of his eldest brother, William Manning. In the church at Totteridge there are no monuments of the Mannings ; but in one of the City churches there is a tablet in memory of his grandmother, with the following inscription :

Sacred to the memory of

Elizabeth Manning,

Wife of Willian Manning, Esq., Merchant of London.

Died the 3rd of January 1780,

And was buried

Within the Walls of this Church.

This Tablet is erected by her Son,

William Manning, Esq.,

As an affectionate Tribute to her

Exemplary Virtues.^

On his father's death in 1791, William Manning, the Cardinal's father, succeeded to the business, which was carried on in New Bank Buildings, City, at a later period, in partnership with Mr. John Anderdon, and made a handsome fortune in the palmy days of West Indian prosperity. In those days

1 In the parish church of St. Giles, Speen, near Newbury, is to be found the marriage register of the Cardinal's grandfather, William Manning, and Elizabeth, daughter of William and Mary Ryan of St. Kitts, West Indies: — Elizabeth Ryan, baptized on 6th November 1732, at the parish church of St. George, Basseterre, St. ICitts, married at Speen, Berks, 1st October 1751, to William Manning. Elizabeth Ryan was the owner of two estates in St. Kitts, and soon after the marriage her husband, Mr. William Manning, founded the great AVest Indian house, afterwards known as Manning and Anderdon. It is said that he first started in business at Bristol, where he became acquainted with Isaac Disraeli, the father of Lord Beaconsfield. Subsequently he was established as a West Indian merchant at St. Mary Axe, London, and lived at Billiter Square, City.

t BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 7

the West Indian interest was a factor in the political world ; accordingly William Man ning entered Parliament as member for Plympton Earle in 1790. In 1807 — the year his youngest son, Henry Edward, was born — he was elected member for Evesham ; he represented afterwards Penryn, and supported West Indian and commercial interests in the House of Commons for about thirty-nine years. He was highly respected in the City ; was for many years a director of the Bank of England, and was governor in the years 1812-13. The late Mr. Thomson Hankey, F.G.S., head at one time of the great West Indian house of that name, told me a year or two ago, that he knew William Manning, who enjoyed a high reputation in the City, as well as his son Charles, and that he likewise had some acquaintance with the Cardinal. 1

Cardinal Manning's own description of his father's character and career, though long, is too graphic and noble a tribute of gratitude and reverence to be omitted.

My dear father was one of the justest, most benevolent, most generous men I ever knew. His refinement and delicacy of mind was such, that I never heard out of his mouth a word which might not have been spoken in the presence of the most pure and sensitive, except once. He was then forced by others to repeat a negro story which, though free from all evil cle sextu, was indelicate. He did it with great resistance. His example gave me a hatred of all such talk. He was of the Old Church Established religion ; a friend of the bishops, many of whom were his close personal friends, such as Porteus of London, Bardon of Bath and Wells, and Pelham of Lincoln, who had been, I think, at school with him. It was under their influence that he decided for me from my childhood, that I should be a clergyman. My brothers used to call me " the Parson," which made me hate the thought of it. But I used to ride my pony in the Park with the Bishop of Lincoln, and I passively submitted to the destiny. I remember that I used to ride with my father through the Horse Guards to the House of Commons, and go

1 Mr. Hankey was unable, in answer to the Cardinal's inquiries, to give any informatiou respecting his grandfather, Mr. "William Manning. In his letter to Mr. Hankey, Cardinal Manning said he made these inquiries not on his own account, but on behalf of some one else. To me Mr. Hankey wrote : '* I fear that I can give you no information respecting Cardinal Manning's family which could possibly be of use to you."

in and sit under the gallery. This was when I was about twelve or thirteen, my father was then member for Evesham, afterwards he sat for Lymington. He was in the House from 1790 to 1829, in all nearly forty years. I remember hearing him speak once in the House, from the second bench below the gangway, I fancy, on the Opposition side ; but how I cannot explain, for he supported the Tory Government, and they were in till the year 1830. He spoke with his arms folded, with perfect fluency, never recalling a word, with great clearness, and with a pleasant voice. He was listened to with great attention. It was very high speaking, but not oratory, but he had in him so much emotion, that I believe he could if he had been roused, speak with true natural oratory. But he was too refined, modest, and sensitive to make a display, or to overdo anything. He was in danger of underdoing what he did from fear of display. He was fond of reading, and had a wonderful memory, but his life was so active, busy, kindly, and, in later years, so anxious, that he had little time to read. After the peace of 1815, the great incomes of our merchants began to fall. The West Indian commerce suffered first and most. This shook his commercial house, and from 1820 to 1830 he had great cares, which ended at last in complete ruin. During those years he was in London most days in the week. When he came down to Combe Bank, he was worn and weary. He was fond of fishing, and would stand for hours by the water at Combe Bank. He used to tell me that his chief delight was the perfect quiet after the strain and restlessness of London. We used to ride often together, but his time was too much broken, and his mind too full to allow of conversation on any subjects beyond the commonest. Therefore, he never taught, or roused my mind on any kinds of knowledge. But I owe to him more than this, he was a most loving, generous, noble-minded man, I never knew him to do anything little, or say anything unworthy. He was both respected and loved by all who knew him ! and his range of friends in his long parliamentary and city life was very wide. Till late years men used constantly to speak of him to me with affection ; many with great gratitude for kindnesses ; but his contemporaries are all gone now — as mine also are going fast.-"-

The following account of his mother, written by Cardinal Manning ten or twelve years before his death, will be read by all with interest.

My dear mother taught me my letters, my Catechism, and

1 Cardinal Mauning's Journal, 1878-82.

I' HOME AND SCHOOL 9

tlie beginning of Latin grammar. Slie was, for those times, well educated, and had great facilities for all kinds of woman's work, even to making little shoes for me. She was a great reader, but not of higher subjects. She had a great taste in anything about the house, and in gardening, and was very fond of flowers. I used to talk more with her, than with my father, and saw more of her ; but our talk was not on topics of education. The good she did me was that she urged me to work. I remember her saying a thing to me which did me a signal service. I was reading for honours at Oxford, and I told her that I had no hope of succeeding, she said very gravely, and without a sign of mere encouragement; "I never knew you undertake anything you did not do." This came to me as strength, I was unconscious of ever having done anything ; and it sent me back over my school days. She had watched me more than I knew, and there was more truth in what she said than I had ever known. I never was satisfied with anything I had done, and I had a clear sight of my own deficiencies and of the greater abilities and attainments of others. So much for my dearest mother, who loved me too much as the youngest, but she always told me of faults, and what I ought to do. She was generous, and largehanded as my father, and cared for the poor.

Speaking of his first home at Totteridge, Cardinal Manning, in an autobiographical Note dated 1882, wrote as follows : —

My personal memories are few, but very deep. One is that in a little room off the library a cousin of mine, about two years older, when I was about four, told me that God had a book in which He wrote down everything we did wrong. This so terrified me for days that I remember being found by my mother sitting under a kind of writing-table in great fear. I never forgot this at any time in my life, and it has been a great grace to me, and kept me from the greatest dangers.

I remember, also, a great fire in an oil-mill on the Thames near London Bridge. I was then, perhaps, scarcely four. It was at night, and the reflection in the sky was visible at Totteridge ten miles off. I remember being held up at the drawing-room window to look at it. The effect on me was fear. I remember, also, that one day I came in from the farmyard, and my mother asked me whether I had seen the peacock. I said yes, and the nurse said no, and my mother made me kneel down and beg God to forgive me for not speaking the truth. This also fixed itself in my mind. I have one other recollection, and that is of my aunt, who lived close by, coming in to tell my mother of the Battle of Waterloo. This was just before we went to Combe Bank. More than this I cannot remember at Totteridge, except that my mother taught me to read out of a book called The Ladder to Learning, of which I do not remember a word. She also began to teach me Latin grammar when I was six or seven.

But my father had a house at 14 New Street, Spring Gardens, and I have a memory there of a lady in deep mourning coming to my mother and crying and swaying up and down with her handkerchief in her hand. She was the widow of Captain Hood, who was killed, I think, at Bayonne. This was before Waterloo, and about 1812. I was then hardly four.^

Cardinal Manning speaks elsewhere of his mother's having given him, before he went to school in 1816, a diamond New Testament, and says : — "I remember that I devoured the Apocalypse, and I never all through my life forgot the 'lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.' That verse has kept me like an audible voice through all my life, and through worlds of danger in my youth."

In his tenth year, 1817, Henry Manning was sent to school at Streatham, kept by a Welshman of the name of Davies, a clergyman of the old sort, as the Cardinal used to describe him. He had as his assistant his nephew David Jones ; and as usher a man named Rees. Owing to illness, Henry Manning remained only two years at this school. In 1820, when he was thirteen years of age, he was removed to a school at Totteridge, kept by the Rev. Abel Lendon, curate of Totteridge, which then was, and still is, a hamlet of Hatfield. At this school boys were prepared for Westminster. But young Manning scarcely spent two years there, for he left it in 1821. It is not surprising that on going to Harrow in 1822, the fragmentary character of his education put him at a great disadvantage. Had he applied his mind to serious studies, his natural abilities would soon have enabled him to recover lost ground.

In the last eight or ten years of his life, Cardinal Manning's mind reverted with increasing ardour to the days of his

1 Manning was then about seven years old. The battle of Bayonne was fought in 1814, and he was born July 15, 1807.

I HOME AND SCHOOL 11

youth ; to his early home ; to his boyish ambitions. He was in the habit not only of recording the memories of the past in copious journals, note-books, and memoranda, treating not of events only, but of persons. Events that had happened ten, twenty, forty, sixty, or seventy years ago to him personally, or touching him nearly in home or in heart, are recorded in the light of the present; the impressions of to-day are the interpreters of the events of yesterday — though that yesterday be more than half a century ago. All that I need point out — and I dare not omit the caution, where grave events or the character of men are concerned — • is that the impressions recorded or judgments pronounced are not possessed of the virtue or value of contemporaneous evidence. They are after-thoughts or after-judgments put on record as future witnesses on his own behalf.^ In the reminiscences of a lighter character or concern it is only necessary to observe that Cardinal Manning in putting them down even under the form of autobiographical notes trusted simply to his memory; hence, in the following most interesting reminiscences of his school-days, or the days of his boyhood, there are several mistakes as to dates and ages.

Speaking of the first school which he attended, the Cardinal, about the year 1883, wrote as follows : —

My only recollections are of my first lessons in Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns, and of walking about in the playground trying to think what there was before the world was made. The school was not bad in itself, but a bad boy had been in it who left a trail of immorality behind him. I was there only about two years, for I fell ill and was fetched home to Combe Bank, and when I got there I fell asleep before the fire, with my head on a footstool, and was insensible for more than thirty days in fever. The first words I spoke after that long time were to ask for an egg, which before I fell ill I always abhorred, and would never taste. I remember that I had wanderings and thought there was a robin in the room. When I was first put to sit in a chair my head dropped from weakness, and my night-

1 In reference to these autobiographical records Cardinal Manning wrote > in one of his Journals, dated 15th Jan. 1882:—" I hope I have never thought of the future, but of the present : not of how men will judge hereafter, but of how God judges now."

12 CARDINAL MANNING cn^p.

cap was pinned to the back of tlie arm-chair to keep my head up ; I was about ten years old ^ and was long getting well, and then in about a year after I went to a school at Totteridge where I was born, and stayed there until I was in my fifteenth year, and then went to Harrow.

Cardinal Manning gave the following account of the school at Totteridge, which he described as fairly good, and of its master, the Rev. Abel Lendon : —

He was a disciplinarian and regular. I will not say that he was ill-tempered or harsh, but he was austere and we were afraid of him, with a wholesome fear. I was there about four years and during that time I do not remember anything of immorality in the school, except that one of the elder boys used to go to London with one of the ushers, and it was afterwards believed that they frequented bad company. But among the boys I do not remember any instance of immorality, or of dangerous intimacy, or of immodest language, or of foul talk ; excepting on one occasion from an insolent boy. The dormitories were well watched, and I never remember any case of disorder. Looking back upon that school, it stands out in marked contrast to the first I was at. I do not know that there was more religion, but there was more moral purity, refinement, and civilisation. Also I remember that I used to have great pleasure in going to Totteridge Church, and I really tried to pray. The friendships were good, and had a higher tone. As to studies, of course being older I learned more, but to my cost I was made to learn the Westminster Greek Grammar, so that when I went to Harrow where the Eton Greek Grammar was used, I was thrown out and had to begin all over again, which in the end did me good. I was put too high at first coming, and was kept back a remove at the end of the first half before Christmas. When I went home I spent my holidays at Combe Bank. I got up every morning at five, or before, and lighted my fire, and made my breakfast, and read till eight o'clock, then got my pony and rode to the Curate of Sundridge, the parish of Combe Bank, and read with him both Latin and Greek. This did me immense good. It made me like gettin g up in the dark for the rest of my life ; and it was the beginning of self-education. But my danger always was doing things too easily. A friend at Oxford used to say that " I was the idlest hard-reading man, and the hardest-reading idle man " that he ever knew. To my