Chapter 17 A TIMELY GRAND TOUR. Rulers of Evil by F. Tupper Saussy in HTML Web Format
Rulers of Evil by F. Tupper Saussy in HTML Web Format
Chapter 17 A TIMELY GRAND TOUR
AMONG THE MANY British visitors to Rome during Clement XIV’s
sweetening toward England in the early 1770’s was a young member of an ancient
ruling family of Dorset and Somerset counties named Charles Philippe Stourton.1
Charles Philippe was nephew to the Dukes of Norfolk. We remember the Norfolks,
Thomas and Edward Howard, for their significant contributions to American
independence – Thomas, originator of colonial Freemasonry; Edward, coupler of
Lord Bute to the
future George III.
Arriving in Rome with Charles Philippe was his professor at
the Jesuit college in the medieval Flemish (now Belgian) city of Bruges, John
Carroll. The pair were enjoying a Grand Tour of Europe which had begun in the
summer of 1771.
From Bruges they had proceeded by carriage down through Alsace-Lorraine to
Strasbourg, across the Rhine to Baden-Baden, then upstream to Carlsruhe,
Bruschal, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Worms, and Mainz. From Mainz they made a
curious detour over to Trier, back to Mannheim, through Swabia to Augsburg,
then to Munich, Innsbruch, across the Italian border to Trent, along the Adige
River to Roveredo, Verona, Mantua, Modena, and Bologna. They reached Rome in
the autumn of 1772.
In Rome, Lorenzo Ricci appointed Carroll to the position of Prefect of the
Sodality. This title designates, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “a
chief organizer of laymen for the promotion of some form of social action.” For
the promotion of what social action, I wonder, might Ricci have ordained
Carroll to organize, if not the American Revolution?
While John was in Rome with Lorenzo Ricci, his cousin Charles Carroll, now in
his mid-thirties, pulled off a clever media ruse in Maryland. It won him
tremendous popularity and established him as an important civic leader. In
January 1773, a letter in the Maryland Gazette attacked the administration of
Maryland Governor Robert Edens. The letter was signed “First Citizen.” In a
subsequent Gazette, the attack was demolished by the eloquent arguments of a
“Second Citizen.” But in February, “First Citizen” demolished “Second Citizen.”
As the duel continued on into the summer, “First Citizen” was revealed to be
Charles Carroll. Whereupon “Second Citizen” nastily slandered Carroll, putting
him down as a “disfranchised Catholic.” Suddenly now, Carroll was an underdog –
just like his fellow Americans in relation to the British Crown. Although
Charles was a super-rich lawyer- landowner educated at the best Jesuit colleges
in Europe, the people lavished him with sympathy. They despised “Second
Citizen” for his bigotry. Maryland and America now had a new hero, a preeminent
champion of religious liberties, a Roman Catholic First Citizen advocating a
new political order. Loathsome Second Citizen made the status quo seem distasteful
and undesirable – which, of course, was his assignment in the ruse. Second
Citizen turned out to be the acknowledged head of the American bar, a Mr.
Dulany….
