From Fitzroy’s Private Diary (Extract 170)

Religion is not a subject to be spoken about when one is enjoying oneself. Or, at least, that’s the impression one has. Don’t mention religion, or politics, during dinner, one is taught as a child. Never ask people their religions inclinations or political affiliations, whether that be upon initial meeting or developing acquaintance, lest it create a gulf in an otherwise constructive relationship.

Yet, we are a religious country. Our sovereign is the head of our church. Almost everybody goes to church on a Sunday. Even the servants get time off to do so. We are all assumed to be Christians, and even the poorest among us stump up for christening cake for their offspring, following the necessary dunking in the local font.

The splashing of water on the infant’s head is meant to drive out the devil, I believe, and the cry the suddenly moistened child is a sign that he has departed. More than one person has suggested that at my own christening, the ministering priest was deficient in his vocation.

Personally, I’m not much of an interlocutor with the almighty. My duty frequently requires me to break some, if not all, of the commandments. Do not kill is the obvious one, and my temperament encourages me to break some of the others (I’m thinking, in particular, of that one about not coveting thy neighbour’s wife, and where that can, and in my case often does, lead).

Does this mean I’m beyond salvation? Possibly. Probably. But what does it say of the people who order me to do such things? (Not the adultery, of course. Well, not usually that). I work for the Crown, via many intermediaries. As I have already stated, the Crown is also the head of our church, and yes, though you may dislike the comparison, the Crown is our version of the Catholic’s Pope. Obviously, I’m not one to question the sovereign’s state of grace, but you get the implication.

All those Sunday church goers, and all those partners of mine in commandment breaking, what about them? I don’t doubt there some truly good and devout people, though not necessarily in the clergy. The most devote oenophile I have ever known was a bishop. But then, vocation to join the clergy used to come down to no more than one being a third son (the first inherits the estate, the second goes into the army, and the third is sacrificed to the church – so to speak – and as I was a fourth son, no one had any idea of what to do with me).

Cynically, I have come to take the view that the majority of the British population are religious on Sundays, between the hours of ten in the morning up until to the serving of the Sunday roast. The rest of the time, religion takes a back-seat to the wanton group of profligates /that passes for society.

In fact, as I make no claims of being good, nor will I ever, when it comes to hypocrisy, one really could say that I’m the best of a bad lot. Ha!