The Two Usurpations

The Two Usurpations: On Piddington, Proscription, and the Sword That Belongs to Neither.

So we have a village with a real grievance, a private army offering to defend it, and a ministry reaching for its proscription powers. I want to argue that there are two usurpations here and not one, that they are opposite in direction and equal in gravity, and that the Catholic tradition possesses the resources to condemn both without collapsing either into the other. The State has claimed a jurisdiction that does not belong to it. The private band has claimed a sword that does not belong to it. Neither condemnation touches the villagers of Piddington, whose grievance is legitimate, whose only weapon so far has been a ballot of no legal effect, and whose own parish representatives have said plainly that they did not ask for masked men and that their opposition long predated the arrival of Mr Thomas.