The Grenvilles' Eminence Grise: The Reverend Charles O'Conor and the Latter Days of Anglo-Gallicanism

Abstract

The nadir of the Tridentine papacy occupied those years which spanned the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 and the imprisonment of Pius VII by Napoleon from 1809 to 1814. The suspension of the Church's most distinguished organ of Ultramontane sentiment alleviated the further spread of Febronian or Josephist principles throughout the Netherlands and the German and even Italian sections of the Empire. Yet, Pius VI's concern with the Punctuation of Ems or the Synod of Pistoia paled in comparison with the challenge to spiritual and temporal papal authority contained in the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and other doctrines and consequences of the French Revolution.