The Cunning of the Dove by Alfred Duggan

In the Middle Ages, there was a whole literature de regimine principum, on how a Christian ruler should be educated and behave. Hence his title, which shuffles the Gospel verse so that the innocent dove (Edward) is as cunning as the serpent.Ī hard truth, one that a Christian instinctively resists. Louis and – who? Duggan’s novel raises a question: Can a saintly man also be a good ruler? To run the worldly city well requires worldly – not merely heavenly – virtues. Saintly rulers are a great rarity: after St. There’s probably no more realistic and insightful account of the life of a saintly king. I know of none which give the same sense of intimacy as Alfred’s – as though he were describing personal experiences and observations.” As Waugh wrote of him: “This century has been prolific in historical novels, many garish, some scholarly. Some things, it seems, never really change.ĭuggan was a friend of Evelyn Waugh’s, a conservative Catholic, a powerful yet graceful writer who deserves to be better known for a series of novels set in the Middle Ages. – Robert RoyalĪs a brief respite from the turmoil in Church and State these days, I’ve been indulging myself with a very pleasant read through Alfred Duggan’s novel (1960) The Cunning of the Dove– a fictional re-creation of the turmoil in Church and State in the days of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). Click the button and make your contribution to this crucial struggle for both the Church and the world. If you appreciate the urgency of that mission, please, we live by your support, financial and moral. Both are vitally important at this historical moment. But those of us who “belong to the truth” (as the Gospel reading yesterday for Christ the King put it), have a responsibility both to understand our situation and then to act faithfully.

That’s been our core mission at The Catholic Thing. But we also need to maintain a calm sense of urgency about responding to corruption, sin, outright crimes by churchmen as well as public figures.

In the current turmoil throughout the Church and the world, people often say – rightly – that we live in a fallen world that present evils helpfully remind us of that fact, and should lead us to even greater faithfulness – and peace. NOTE: One advantage of being part of a Christian body with a 2000-year history is that we see things differently than others do.

The Cunning of the Dove by Alfred Duggan