One of the first facts that would strike any observant visitor to our shores in those days, would be the attitude of the Church in England towards the Holy See.  Every Archbishop, every metropolitan from the time of St. Augustine himself, A.D. 601, up to the sixteenth century, not merely acknowledged the authority of the Pope, but solemnly swore to show him reverence and obedience.  Furthermore, even when an Archbishop had been appointed and consecrated, he could not exercise jurisdiction until he had received the sacred pallium, which came from Rome, and was received as the symbol and token of the authority conferred on him by the supreme Pastor.  The pallium itself, “taken from the body of Blessed Peter,” is a band of lamb’s wool, and was worn by each Archbishop as the pledge of unity and of orthodoxy, as well as the fetter of loving subjection to the Supreme Pastor of the One Fold, the “apostolic yoke” of Catholic obedience.

In the early Saxon times, long before trains or steamers had been invented, we find Primate after Primate of All England undertaking the long and perilous journey over the sea, and then across the Continent of Europe, and over the precipitous and dangerous passes of the Alps, down through the sunny and vine-clad slopes of Italy, in order to receive the pallium in person from the venerable successor of St. Peter, in the great Basilica in Rome.  But, whether they actually went for it themselves in person, or whether special messengers were sent with it from Rome to England, they always awaited its reception before they considered themselves fully empowered to exercise their metropolitan functions.  By way of illustration, it may be interesting to consider some special case, and we will then leave the reader to judge whether we are dealing with an England that is Catholic or an England that is Protestant; with an England united to the Holy See and to the rest of Catholic Europe, or an England independent of the Holy See, isolated, and established by Law and Parliament, as it is to-day—­an England in possession of the truth, which is universal and the same everywhere, or an England clinging to error, which is local, national and circumscribed.

It does not much matter what name we select; any will answer our purpose.  Let us then take Simon Langham, as good and honest an English name as ever there was.  It is the year 1366, some two hundred years before the Church in England cut itself off from the rest of Christendom.  The metropolitan See of Canterbury is vacant.  The widowed Diocese seeks, at the hands of the Pope, Urban V., a new Archbishop.  After mature inquiry and consideration the Pope selects Simon Langham.  And who is he?  Who is this distinguished man, now called to rule over that portion of the one Catholic Church represented by England?  If we study his history we shall find that he in no way resembles the typical amiable Anglican Canon of the present day, with a wife and children, living