When he recovered, George wrote a sequence of letters for publication in newspapers, stating clearly his religious beliefs, and defending them from other correspondents. These were doctrinal duels, with Protestants championing their creeds, just as he fought for the Catholic faith. Such ‘controversies’ were a popular feature of Victorian newspapers, and George’s resolute logic and robust defence became well known to a national audience.
It was as a preacher, though, that he made a more lasting impact. In 1838 he dedicated himself completely to what had over the preceding half-dozen years become an increasingly important part of his life’s work: praying for the conversion of England to Catholicism. George’s simple yet sincere view was that, through prayer alone, this was an attainable goal. All that was needed was the rallying of Catholics in the lands around Britain to unite in this holy cause, and the result would be a return to the fold by the erring Protestants.
Later in life, George had three audiences with Pope Pius IX in which he lucidly explained the aims of his ministry: ‘I am openly stirring the people of Rome to a third conquest of England,’ he told the pontiff:
Rome conquered England once, under Julius Caesar, by the material sword. Rome conquered England a second time, more gloriously, under St Gregory I, by the Word of God. I am calling on Rome to undertake this conquest again, under Pius IX, when it will be a vastly more important one than heretofore, and by means more glorious and more divine, because referring more purely the glory of God, being chiefly holy prayer.
Apparently the Pope said nothing to George after this, but merely smiled. No doubt he was sufficiently realistic to understand that his priest’s dreams would never be realized, while not wanting to undermine Spencer’s praiseworthy passion.
The majority of the British press ridiculed George’s efforts, seeing them as a blend of dangerous subversion and ludicrous superstition. Used to derision, George treated this criticism with a confidence bordering on the contemptuous, writing to the Morning Chronicle:
Public prayers of our days, at least in this country, have a power the influence of which, it seems, the highest and greatest must feel. It were well if those who wield this power always so wielded it as to make it a refuge to the weak under oppression, a terror to the strong oppressor, and an object of respect to all.
In the remainder of this letter, he laid out the background to his Catholic ministry, explaining his personal commitment to beliefs he accepted must be puzzling to others:
I am brother to Lord Spencer. I was once a clergyman of the Established Church. In the year 1830 I became a Catholic, and two years later a Catholic priest. My family and my countrymen generally must, of course, judge me to have been greatly mistaken in taking these steps; but I have never, I believe, been deliberately accused of dishonesty, or insincerity, on account of them. As an honest Catholic, I am bound to believe, what I do believe, what it is of infinite consequence, temporal and eternal, to the welfare of my countrymen as individuals, and as a nation, that they should return to the Catholic faith, and I have devoted my life to the object of leading them back to it.
George was aware that his beliefs must not impact negatively on the Spencer name, particularly while his brother Jack was so prominent politically. As a result George constantly stressed the fact that he was a loyal citizen, and his concerns were purely those of religion, not of politics:
I was once attacked by a staunch Church of England man, who had been an old sailor, and who had lost an arm in the service, for what he thought was unworthy of my character and family, leaving my colours and changing sides. I answered him thus: ‘Suppose you, my friend, had entered a ship bearing the King of England’s flag and pennant, and gone out and fought many a battle against French cruisers, but then found out by chance that the captain of the ship was an outlawed pirate, who had no right to the colours which he wore, and was making you fight for himself, not for your king, would you let me call you a deserter if the next time you came within hail of a true king’s ship you jumped overboard and swam to her?’ The good sailor seemed to understand me, and said no more about leaving my colours.
It was a good anecdote, and one that he often used in his days as a wandering preacher.
Technically, George was not a good public speaker. He lacked passion and verve, and many of the other qualities usually associated with skilful oratory. However, the power of his sincerity, allied to his patient tenacity, made him a curiously effective preacher. One lady who heard him recorded:
I saw him go into the pulpit; I heard him address the people, and I was waiting all the time thinking when will he have done talking and begin to preach, until, to my surprise, I found what purported to be a sermon coming to a conclusion, yet I can remember to this day almost everything he said.
The Catholic Church realized what an asset it possessed in a priest who could connect with an audience so completely — particularly one from such a rarefied background, who intrigued the public so. An announcement in an 1841 newspaper stated:
The Honourable and Rev. George Spencer, son of the late, and brother of the present Earl Spencer, preached two sermons yesterday at the Catholic chapel of the Royal Sardinian Embassy, Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in aid of the funds of the chapel, which have been latterly in a depressed state. The chapel was so densely crowded, that numbers were unable to obtain admission.
But George was beginning to feel a similar unease to the sort that had preceded his switch from Anglican to Catholic. He increasingly questioned whether he was best serving his God by being an ordinary priest. He went into retreat in 1846 to decide what the best way ahead would be. When he emerged, his mind was made up: he would become a Passionist.
The Congregation of the Passion had been founded a century earlier by Blessed Paul of the Cross. Its work was centred on ‘the uprooting of sin, and the planting of virtue in the hearts of the faithful’. It focused on the Passion of Jesus Christ, hoping to inspire Christians by his example, while reminding them of their everlasting debt to their saviour. On a practical level, the Passionists became troubleshooters for the Catholic Church as a whole. They could be deployed in a passive way, forming missions and retreats, but they could also be sent out as reinforcements, taking charge of parishes that needed a strong hand, and undertaking foreign missions at the behest of the Pope.
The day-to-day living was rigorous enough to satisfy even someone as austere as George Spencer. Going to bed on straw, the Passionist had to rise shortly after midnight, to begin a day that revolved around services and meditation. Food intake was strictly controlled: there were regular fasts, and flesh could be eaten on only four days each week. Clothing was similarly harsh, designed to be without any element of comfort: George wore a coarse black robe, and had only open sandals on his feet, whatever the season.
The code of the Passionists was similar to that of St Paul, as stated in his letter to the Colossians, chapter I, verse 24: ‘I rejoice in my sufferings, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh for His body, which is the Church.’
Baptismal names were surrendered on becoming a Passionist. The new priest chose a fresh identity, invoking the example and guidance of a famous religious figure for the road ahead. George chose ‘Ignatius’, out of a desire to celebrate the muscular achievements of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, whom he admired enormously: ‘I intend to express my sense of obligation to ... St Ignatius,’ he wrote, ‘by taking his name as my future designation, after I am admitted to the religious habit. So I hope in time I may come to be known no more by my own name, but by that of “Ignatius of St Paul”.’ It was the name by which he was known from his acceptance as a Passionist priest on 5 January 1847, until his death.
Despite this final rejection of all aspects of his temporal life, George was not shy of using his family background if it could help him in his constant fundraising efforts for the Catholic Church. Once, having knocked uninvited at the door of a wealthy household, he was told by a servant that
the master was out and the mistress was too busy to be disturbed by a begging priest. George retorted that perhaps the lady of the house was unaware that he was not as low-born as she had assumed from his garb; he was in fact the Hon. Mr Spencer. On being informed of this, the mistress of the house quickly appeared, offering him something to eat or drink. Father Ignatius declined, and said what he would like was money for his causes. She gave him £5.
If she had expected this donation to result in profuse gratitude, she was to be quickly disabused by the directness which was Father Ignatius’s way: ‘Now, I am very sorry to have to tell you that the alms you have given me will do you very little good,’ he chided his benefactress. ‘If I had not been of a noble family, you would have turned me away with coldness and contempt. I take the money, because it will be as useful to me as if it were given with a good motive; but I would advise you, for the future, if you have any regard for your soul, to let the love of God, and not human respect, prompt your alms-giving.’ Having delivered his rebuke, he quit the house, and went on his way.
Being the son of George John, Second Earl Spencer, and brother to Jack Althorp, undoubtedly gave Father Ignatius access to influential people who would otherwise not have found the time to speak with a Catholic preacher. He was certainly able to play on his Spencer roots, which belied the simplicity of his appearance. As one newspaper said at the time:
Thus was constantly to be seen as a mendicant Friar, oft in the rude garb of his order, the descendant of the great Duke of Marlborough, and the son of an English Earl, Knight of the Garter, and the brother of two Earls, one of them a leading statesman and the other a Knight of the Garter also.
Certainly, Ignatius drew confidence from his distinguished ancestry. In February 1850, he strolled up to the door of Number 10, Downing Street, and requested an interview with Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister. Russell agreed to see Ignatius, on the condition that it was understood that, whatever answers he might give to the priest’s questions were to be viewed as personal ones, and did not necessarily reflect the views of the government. Ignatius accepted this, and the private audience proceeded, both men enjoying the high quality of the ensuing intellectual and theological debate.
Six years later, in Paris, Ignatius was granted an audience with Napoleon III. He explained to the French monarch his mission of returning England to Catholicism. Ignatius certainly made an impact on Napoleon, the latter sending 1,000 Francs to his lodgings, to go towards the sum Ignatius was raising on yet another one of his European tours.
Father Ignatius was active throughout northern and central Europe. On one of his five trips to Germany, he bumped into Frederick, Fourth Earl Spencer, by complete chance, in Cologne. Frederick greeted his brother cheerily, with: ‘Hilloa, George, what are you doing here?’ Ignatius kept his reply succinct: ‘Begging.’ They then had an easy conversation, sharing reminiscences about their days at Eton together, neither commenting on what an extraordinary coincidence their chance meeting represented.
Despite their shared childhood, Frederick was severe on his younger brother after his conversion to Catholicism. From the time Frederick succeeded Jack as Earl Spencer, he banned Ignatius from visiting Althorp. This was not out of personal animosity, but because of a sincere belief that Ignatius’s conversion could not be allowed to go unpunished. Whereas Jack had sought merely to avoid the embarrassment of his youngest brother trying to turn his staff and dependants away from the Church of England, Frederick believed, with unquestioning confidence, that it was not right to have the turncoat priest under his roof.
This exile from Althorp lasted twelve years, until the winter of 1857. Ignatius then sent Frederick a letter concerning a mutual acquaintance who was in financial need. It would be kind of Frederick, his brother said, to consider helping with a small donation. In passing Ignatius mentioned that he would be going from his present lodgings in Ireland to Bermondsey, in London, to open a mission, the following January.
When he replied, Frederick sent £3 for the needy friend and, more significantly, an invitation for Ignatius to stay at Althorp for a couple of nights, on his way between Dublin and London. Frederick pointed out that he was inviting Ignatius as a private friend, ‘without seeing it necessary to hold spiritual communications with the people in the neighbourhood’. Ignatius gratefully accepted, and was greatly looking forward to seeing his brother and his family home once more. However, it was not to be. The day before Ignatius left Ireland for this homecoming, Frederick died.
Ignatius was deeply upset by the death, which he learned about from a newspaper article. The strange blend of unfettered emotion and strict Christian piety that was so central to Ignatius’s life is revealed in his reaction to the bereavement. ‘I gave myself up to three days’ sorrowing for my dear brother Frederick, but I took care to thank God for the affliction,’ he later recalled.
John Poyntz, Frederick’s heir as Earl Spencer, treated his religious uncle with sensitivity and respect, giving him back his family allowance and making him a welcome guest at Althorp. It must have been an unsettling experience, staying at his childhood home, with all its luxury, after so many years of self-denial. However, Ignatius was able to take the contrast with his normal existence in his stride, delighting in the small details of his visits, telling Adelaide, Countess Spencer, about his first return ‘home’ for eighteen years, in a letter of June 1860:
I was to write to you an account of my visit to Althorp and of my impression of it ... Perhaps you have heard that my visit there was not merely of a few hours, as intended, from Northampton to Weedon, but that I stopped the night ... Accordingly I saw them at Althorp all retire to rest on the Wednesday night and witnessed the scene produced by those ladies (as they went thro’ the anteroom to the tea room on their way to the only practicable staircase) being met there by a large rat ... These ladies stood the shock decidedly with MORE courage and sangfroid than I have known displayed on some such occasions.
Two years later, Ignatius was invited by his nephew, the Fifth Earl Spencer, to be a house guest during a formal dinner for the Volunteer Corps, an amateur military body with which the young earl was closely associated. When Ignatius arrived, he was concerned to see how smart the other guests were in their dress uniform. He asked Charlotte, his nephew’s wife, if she wanted him to wear something other than his Passionist garb that night. She would have none of it, and insisted that he remain in his usual attire — a gesture that Ignatius greatly appreciated for its thoughtfulness. He was also deeply touched when he found that, not only was he seated in the place of honour next to the Fifth Earl, but also he was invited to speak to the assembled group of guests after dinner. He felt truly accepted by his family once more.
These two visits to Althorp took place in a period, 1858 to 1864, when Ignatius was devoting his efforts towards what he termed ‘little missions’. These were short, concentrated retreats, still revolving around his aim of reconverting England. For twenty-two weeks each year, he wandered from parish to parish, often on foot, expounding his beliefs. It was a gruelling schedule, with a daily routine that involved a 5 a.m. rise, the hearing of confessions, the observance of mass and office, followed by a lecture.
By this stage of his life, Father Ignatius was a deeply respected figure in the Passionist order. The novices regarded him as a saint, believing that he would qualify for such a position in the Catholic Church because he had reportedly performed miracles. One of these allegedly occurred as early as 1835, long before he became a Passionist, during one of his many visits to the sick. The then George Spencer had attended a child that had been ill for some time with a hideous affliction around the mouth. George had laid his finger on the child’s tongue, then said: ‘It will be well.’ The child was apparently cured within half an hour of George’s utterance. Father Pius, his biographer, wrote of Father Ignatius’s personal popularity among his fellow Passionists:
In recreation he was a treasure. We gathered round him by a kind of instinct, and so entertaining was
he that one felt it a mortification to be called away from the recreation-room while Father Ignatius was in it. He used to recount with peculiar grace and fascinating wit, scenes he went through in his life.
It was a life that was slowly drawing to a close. As his own health became less reliable, Ignatius revealed an increasing appetite for helping dying Christians on their own deathbeds. During his final months he made a point of acknowledging that his ministry was coming to an end, stating that the current volume of his journal would be his last; when he completed it, that would mark the conclusion of his life as well.
He had one final ambition, revealed more than two decades before: he wanted to die like Jesus, without any care or fuss from his fellow man. As he said himself, ‘How beautiful it would be to die in a ditch, unseen and unknown.’ Eerily, it was a wish that was granted almost down to the last detail.
In September 1864, while changing trains at Carstairs Junction between ‘little missions’, Father Ignatius found he had some time before his connection would arrive. He decided to go to visit a godson of his who lived nearby, a nun called Monteith. He walked along the drive to the Monteith house and, a hundred feet from the front door, in full sight of two children, he sat down for a rest on a tree stump, his ulcerous leg doubtless playing up. He never got to his feet again, dying instantly, so that his body was later found in its final, seated, pose. In the sack by his feet, his journal was discovered to be all but complete, only the last few lines of the volume remaining blank.
At his funeral the Right Reverend Dr Ullathorne gave the address:
Listen, then, dearly beloved, and hang your attention on my voice, whilst I speak of him who was once called in the world the Honourable and Reverend George Spencer, a scion of one of the noblest houses of the nobility of this land, but who himself preferred to be called Father Ignatius of St Paul ... How beautiful, how sublime was his departure. Father Ignatius had often wished and prayed that, like his Divine Lord, like St Francis Xavier, and like his dear friend and master in the spiritual life, Father Dominic, he might die at his post, yet deserted and alone. God granted him that prayer.
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