ROY
213
ROYER-COLLARD
and remained a prisoner for more than three years,
during half of which time (14 Aug., 1582, until 12
Feb., 1584) he was confined to the dungeon known as
the "Little Ease". On the latter date he was trans-
ferred to the Marshalsea, from which prison he was
carried into exile in the autumn of 1585. He arrived
at Reims, 8 October, but set out for England again,
7 Feb., 1586. The field of his labours, which were
continued for about a year, was in the west of Eng-
land. He was taken at the house of the Widow
Strange in Gloucestershire. His trial and martyrdom
were at Gloucester in March, 1586-87.
Douay Diaries; Reg. Univ. Oxon.; Rishton, Diarium in Turri- Londin; Pollen. Acts of Eng. Martyrs (London, 1891); Prison Lists, II (Catholic Record Society).
J. L. Whitfield. Roy, Paul Eugene. See Quebec, Archdiocese
OF.
Royal Declaration, The. — This is the name most commonly given to the solemn repudiation of Catholicity which, in accordance with the provisions of the "Bill of Rights" (1689) and of "the Act of Succession" (1700), every sovereign succeeding to the throne of Great Britain was, until quite recently, required to make in the presence of the assembled Lords and Commons. This pronouncement has also often been called "the King's Protestant Declara- tion" or "the Declaration against Transubstantia- tion" and (but quite incorrectly) "the Coronation Oath". With regard to this last term it is important to notice that the later coronation oath, which for two centuries has formed part of the coronation service and which still remains unchanged, consists only of certain promises to govern justly and to maintain "the Protestant Reformed Religion es- tablished by Law". No serious exception has ever been taken by Catholics to this particular formula, but the Royal Declaration, on the other hand, was regarded for long years as a substantial grievance, constituting as it did an insult to the faith professed by many millions of loyal subjects of the British Crown. The terms of this Declaration, which from 1689 to 1910 was imposed upon the sovereign by statute, ran as follows: "I, A. B., by the grace of God King (or Queen) of England, Scotland and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantia- tion of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever: and that the invo- cation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Ma.ss, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idol- atrous. And I do solemnly in the presence of God pro- fess, testify, and declare that I do make this declara- tion, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are com- monly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatso- ever, and without any dispensation already granted me by the Pope, or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispen- sation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquittetl before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or persons, or power whatsoever, should dis- pense with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning."
The terms of the document are important, for even the extravagant and involved wording of the "long rigmarole" at the end added much to the sense of studied insult conveyed by the whole formula. Not only is the Mass stigmatized as idolatrous, but a false statement of Cathohc doctrine is impUed in
the reference to the "adoration" of the Virgin Mary
and the saints "as now used in the Church of Rome",
while the existence of a supposed dispensing power is
assumed which the Cathohc Church has never as-
serted. What added still more to the just resent-
ment of Cathohcs at the continued retention of the
Declaration was the consciousness that, in the words
of Lingard, it owed its origin "to the perjuries of an
impostor and the delusion of a nation". The for-
mula was not one drafted by a Parliament in its
sober senses. With the object of excluding Cathohcs
from the throne, the Bill of Rights, after the deposi-
tion of James II in 1689, exacted of the monarch a
profession of faith or "Test". The test selected was
one which already stood in the statute book, and
which was first placed there during the frenzy excited
by the supposed Popish Plot of 1678. It was amid
the panic created by the fabrications of Titus Gates,
that this Test was drafted (not improbably by Gates
himself), and it was imposed upon all officials and
pubhc servants, thus effectually excluding Catholics
from Parliament and positions of trust. By a curious
inversion of history the declaration which was drawn
up in 1678 to be taken by every official except the
king, had come two hundred years later to be exacted
only of the king and of no one else. Although state-
ments have been made contending that the substance
of the Royal Declaration is older than Titus Gates'
time, an examination of these earlier formulae shows
little to support such a conclusion (see a full discus-
sion in "The Tablet", 13 Aug., 1910, p. 243). A
brief account of these formula), and of the attempts
which were made in 1891 and subsequent years to
abolish or modify the Royal Declaration, has already
been given in the article Oaths. It will be sufficient
to cite here the terms of the new Declaration which
was formally carried by Mr. Asquith's Government
in August, 1910, in time to relieve King George V
from the necessity of wounding the feelings of his
Catholic subjects by a repetition of the old formula.
In virtue of Air. Asquith's "Accession Declaration Act "
the brief statement, which now replaces that quoted
above, runs as follows: "I,N, do solemnly and sin-
cerely in the presence of God, profess, testify and
declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I
will, according to the true intent of the enactments
to secure the Protestant Succession to the Throne
of my realm, uphold and maintain such enactments
to the best of my power."
See sections IV and V of the bibliography under the article Oaths; Thurston in Dublin Review (Oct., 1909), 225-38; The Tablet (London, July and August, 1910), passim.
Herbert Thurston.
Royer-CoUard, Pierre-Paul, philosopher and French politician, b. at Sompuis (Marne), 21 June, 1763; d. at Chateauvieux (Loire et Cher), 4 Septem- ber, 1845. An advocate under the ancient regime, and assistant registrar of the municipality of Paris from 1790 till 1792, he withdrew to La Marne during the Terror. In 1797 he represented La Marne in the Council of the Five Hundred (Cinq-Cents) and be- came prominent through a celebrated discourse in which he demanded liberty for the Catholic religion, "which rallied under its ancient standards seven- eighths of the French people", and accused of "pro- found folly" those who wished to substitute "I know not what philosophical silliness". Driven from the council by the stroke of the 18 Fructidor, he turned to the restoration of the Bourbons and began a cor- respondence with Louis XVIII; he was even, up to 1804, a member of a secret council which sent messages to the future king. Under the empire he withdrew from public life, but accepted from Napoleon (Decem- ber, 1809) the chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne. His teaching, which was influenced by the School of Reid, marked a reaction against the sensualism of the eighteenth century. He held to a certain spiritual-
