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Updated: June 10, 2025
Even before Innocent had attained the chair of Peter, the worst dangers that had so long beset the successors of Alexander III were over. After the death of Henry VI, the Sicilian and the German crowns were separated, and the strong anti-imperial reaction that burst out all over Italy against the oppressive ministers of Henry VI was allowed to run its full course.
The scholarship which led the patriots against the usurper in political life led them also against all foreign innovations such as Buddhism and Confucianism, which they scorned as modern and anti-imperial. The Shinto cultus thus received a powerful revival. With the overthrow of the Shogunate in 1868 Confucianism naturally went with it, and for a time Shinto was the state religion.
The death of Pope Julius, however, promptly followed by that of his immediate successor Marcellus, caused the election of the Cardinal Caraffa who became Paul IV. On both occasions, Reginald Pole had been perhaps the favourite candidate: but the election of Paul was a victory for the French, the new Pope being an austere zealot with a violent anti-imperial prejudice.
But a bill must pass both Houses and then receive Imperial Sanction in order to become a law; and failing in this, cannot come up again during the same session. Thus hedged about and thus constituted, it is obvious that a conservative majority was permanently secured and ways provided to block any anti-imperial or revolutionary legislation in the Duma.
More powerful and more feared in Italy than any of his predecessors, Innocent could contentedly watch the anti-imperial reaction extending over the Alps and desolating Germany by civil war. Despite the precautions taken by Henry VI, it was soon clear that the German princes would not accept the hereditary rule of a child of three.
The prospect seems too good to be true. Were we to follow after it and put the loyal Protestant minority into the power of the anti-imperial Catholic majority in the hope of seeking peace and ensuing it, we might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from between his teeth losing the substance for shadow.
His gloomy anticipations were shared in by many of his advisers; and Wolsey, who had set his heart on uniting the forces of England and France against the Emperor, was not unwilling to set a seal on the new French anti-imperial alliance by repudiating Henry's marriage with the Emperor's aunt, if such a dissolution could be brought about without infringing the laws of God.
It was, no doubt, difficult to find proper men; or, if they existed amongst the Brazilians, the jealousy of the Portuguese party in the administration prevented their elevation to power; the aim of that faction being disorder, as auxiliary to their anti-imperial views.
It was represented that I, a foreigner, had dared, unauthorised, and on false pretences, to seize on the person of a gentleman occupying the highest position in one of the most important provinces, and had sent him to Rio de Janeiro as a prisoner, whilst it was I who deserved to be brought to condign punishment for the outrage; and had I at the moment been within reach of the Portuguese faction at the capital, which was embittered against me for establishing order, when to further their own anti-Imperial designs disorder was alone wished a summary end might have been put to my efforts for preserving and consolidating the integrity of the Brazilian empire.
Had I connived at the views of the Anti-Imperial faction even by avoiding the performance of extra-official services I might, without dereliction of my duty as an officer, have amply shared in their favours; but for my adherence to the Emperor against their machinations, that influence was successfully used to deprive me even of the ordinary reward of my labours in the cause of independence.
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