At the next vacancy of the Tiara there will probably
be two English Cardinals, the Pope having announced to Monsignor Howard that he will receive the " hat " on the 12th of next month. Mgr. Howard is a member of the Norfolk family, forty- eight years of age, and personally a favourite at the Vatican, where he holds the post of Vicar of St. Peter's. He is said to be a man of sweet and stately character and of considerable learning, and he has once or twice been employed on missions of some deli- cacy, but he has never obtained any of the higher offices of the Church, though formally styled the "suffragan Bishop of Frascati," and Archbishop in partibus of Neo-Caesarea. His appointment is rather a remarkable one, as there are three English-speaking Cardinals already—Cullen, Manning, and M'Closkey—and the English Catholics will, after his nomination, be over-repre- sented, and it gives rise to a surmise that a new English candidate might not be unwelcome to the Conclave. The Cardinals may step outside Italy, and if they do, may prefer an Englishman, and if an Englishman, then a hereditary Catholic, belonging to one of the few English families which are recognised on the Continent as great.
