The Next Polish Queen of England
There's something about November that makes people want to light fires. In Poland people turn graveyards into beautiful fields of flickering candles. In England we pretend to burn Catholics and then set off fireworks to celebrate. To be fair, most people have forgotten that the mannequins we throw onto bonfires are supposed to be Catholics, but that was the conscious intention of our recent ancestors.
In England, November 5th has been celebrated with fire, explosions and revelry since 1605. This was the day that a man called Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars beneath England's parliament building with several barrels of gunpowder, a box of matches and a very guilty expression on his face. Fawkes has since been called: "The only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions," but that hasn't stopped us casually incinerating effigies of him over the past 400 years.
Why was Fawkes attempting to turn England's parliament and king into lightly-grilled hamburger? Because he was a Catholic and thoroughly fed up with all the anti-Catholic laws that were introduced after King Henry VIII invented his own religion. It wasn't entirely successful, since the direct results were even harsher anti-Catholic laws and four centuries of paranoia about the influence of the Pope.
It is a nice coincidence that as we approach November 5th this year, a 300-year-old piece of British anti-Catholic law has just been overturned. The law, which was part of the Act of Settlement of 1701, said that no British monarch could be Catholic and that any member of the Royal Family who married a Catholic could never become king or queen.
This looks like a small change, since it only effects the job of one person every thirty years or so, but the implications are huge. The first child born to Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, could grow up to marry a Catholic and, if that child is raised as a Catholic, as is often the case in mixed-faith marriages, he or she would be the first Catholic heir to the throne we have had since the 17th century. The last time this situation occurred, Britain was so against the idea that we imported a king from Holland instead.
According to some people, the penultimate Catholic queen in England was Polish. Maria Klementyna Sobieska was definitely Polish, but her title was not universally recognised – most importantly it wasn't recognised by the British government at the time. She was the wife of James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of the last Catholic king, James II – the one who got replaced by a Dutchman. France, the Pope and, I'm guessing, Poland, recognised James and Maria as King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland and never sent Christmas cards to the other King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, William and Mary.
Gazing into my crystal ball I have seen the future history of England: 2013 Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, have a son, named Philip 50 Cent Wales
2031 Prince Philip 50 Cent, heir to the British throne, goes to university to study Surf Science.
2032 Prince Philip 50 Cent meets Magda Pawlak, a Catholic, second generation British-Pole, at a lecture about surfboard wax.
2036 The Prince of Wales and Princess Pawlak marry at Westminster Abbey.
2038 The Prince and Princess of Wales have a daughter named Andżelika. Princess Andżelika is baptised as a Catholic because it's the only way to stop her grandmother crying.
2082 King William V dies. Princess Andżelika is due to be crowned queen in 14 days. Phone calls are made to Holland.
Jamie Stokes