Apostasy is a bad thing, whoever may do it; but it seems particularly bad when it happens to a scion of one of those grand recusant families who kept the faith shining during the time of the penal laws. Leaving the faith, there are saner and crazier options – an intelligent person embracing the latter somehow seems worse. Of course, having left, one may treat one’s still-faithful relatives kindly or not. Thus the tragedy of this week’s subject.
Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian (1882-1940), was the grandson of the 7th Marquess on his father’s side. After his grandfather died, his grandmother and father converted to Catholicism, and subsequently the father married the daughter of Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk – head of an ancient Catholic family, and premier peer and Earl Marshal of England.
