D. Piroyansky

How are saints made? There is definitely no recipe!

This book takes three figures from the Plantagenet period in England -- Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York; and King Henry VI -- and looks at how attempts were made to canonize them. All of the attempts failed, but all three men developed cults that lasted in some form until King Henry VIII overthrew the Catholic Church. All three died violently (although Henry VI's execution was private and it was not announced as an execution). All died for political reasons (Lancaster for opposing King Edward II, Scrope for opposing Henry IV, Henry VI for being probably the worst king in English history, losing France and leading England into the War of the Roses). But why were they "near misses"? What did they lack that, say, Jean Darc/Joan of Ark had? Or why didn't other noteworthy political victims, like Richard II, develop cults?

It's a very interesting concept, but I'm not sure this little book (just 132 pages of actual text) really does it justice. I really would have liked to see a comparison with Jean Darc, for instance -- she was actually executed by Henry VI's government. And, notably, both she and Henry VI had mental illnesses (hers pretty clearly schizophrenia; we don't know enough to say what his was, but it put him in a stupor for many months, and he was never mentally competent even after he started to recover). No doubt a scholar of saints could find other interesting comparisons.

And this really is just a study of the men's cults -- not of the men. While there are certainly people who were sainted without deserving it (England had another royal saint in Edward the Confessor who was far from holy), surely personality counts for something -- and these weren't my idea of saintly men. Thomas of Lancaster was a self-centered jerk who opposed King Edward II without being able to propose workable alternatives. If Henry VI was truly unworldly (a debatable point, as the biographies make clear), it was only because he was mentally defective. Scrope -- who rebelled against King Henry IV but seems to have been a loyal servant of the church -- is the only one who strikes me as possibly a reasonably good man, though I doubt he'd meet out current standard for "sainthood."

Bottom line: This book has a very interesting concept, but I can't help but feel that it's only the middle panel of a three part picture. The left panel is the actual history of Scrope and Lancaster and Henry VI, for which one should see the biographies (at least for Henry VI; biographers haven't done as much for the other two); the right panel is the study of just what goes into becoming a saint. The formal case was made, both for Scrope and for Henry VI, but for political reasons. Which, to be sure, is very likely the reason both cases failed.… (meer)