Lord of the World is a 1907 dystopian science fiction novel by the English Catholic priest Robert Hugh Benson that centres upon the reign of the Antichrist, which is enabled by a movement towards global peace and the unification of religious and political thought. It has been called prophetic by Popes Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV.
Plot In the early 21st-century, with the Tories (rebranded as "Individualists") in decline, the British Empire is functionally a one-party state. The British royal family has been deposed, and Esperanto is widely spoken. Marxism, atheism, liberalism and secular humanism dominate culture and politics.
The world now has only three main religious forces: Catholicism, Humanitarianism, and the Eastern religions. Humanitarianism is essentially atheism, but has adopted the creed that "God is Man." Rome was given entirely to the Pope, who then instituted the death penalty for offenses including adultery and apostasy. The world is otherwise divided into three superstates: a loosely organized European Confederation of socialist states and their colonies in Africa, bound together by Free Trade but on the verge of consolidating under a European parliament; the Eastern Empire, which includes Asia, Australia, and New Zealand; and the American Republic, consisting of both North and South America. The European Confederation and Eastern Empire are on the brink of war.
Oliver Brand, an influential MP from Croydon, is among the most ardent opponents of Catholicism. Oliver's wife Mabel witnesses a volor (flying transport) crash. As the government's Ministers of Euthanasia arrive and finish off the wounded, she sees a priest, Percy Franklin, give Last Rites to a dying Catholic. Traumatised by what she witnessed, Mabel tells Oliver that both the priest and the dying man seemed to believe in what they were doing. Oliver explains the Catholic belief in the afterlife in a dismissive way, and Mabel is mollified.
A mysterious Senator Felsenburgh unexpectedly takes charge of the American Republic's peace delegation and travels the Empire, delivering speeches to rapt audiences in their own languages. Due to Felsenburgh's efforts, world peace is secured. Oliver urges Mabel to accompany him to the announcement, where Felsenburgh will be. With them away, Oliver's secretary, Mr. Phillips, summons Franklin to the house. He explains that Oliver's elderly mother used to be Catholic and wishes to return to the Church before her imminent death. Franklin meets Mrs. Brand and receives her back into the Church. The Brands return home and find Franklin there. To Oliver's shock, Franklin appears physically identical to Felsenburgh. Mabel urges Franklin to leave in peace. She explains that he will see Felsenburgh and the overflowing joy that his arrival has occasioned. On his way home, Franklin encounters a rally being addressed by Felsenburgh. The priest is tempted to believe in him.
While Oliver is away, Mrs. Brand takes a turn for the worse. Ignoring Mabel's sermons against Christianity, Mrs. Brand pleads for Franklin to be summoned. Mabel has her involuntarily euthanised, knowing that Oliver would desire it.
Felsenburgh accepts the post of President of Europe. There is great rejoicing throughout Europe. The Cardinal Protector of England dies, and Franklin is chosen to succeed him. Under Franklin's recommendation, the pope creates an Order of Christ Crucified to spread Catholicism in the face of persecution, an order with no habit or badge, "freer than the Jesuits, poorer than the Franciscans, more mortified than the Carthusians". Many join the new order and are martyred throughout the world.
The Parliaments of Europe institute weekly Humanist ceremonies. Attendance is optional except for the four annual festivals of Maternity, Life, Sustenance, and Paternity. Oliver becomes Minister of Public Worship in England, planning the ceremonies with an ex-priest, John Francis.
The new religion outrages Catholics. Phillips arrives in Rome with news that English and German Catholics are plotting a suicide bombing of the abbey where Felsenburgh's inner circle meets. Franklin and Cardinal Steinmann of Germany leave for their respective homelands to try to prevent the bombing. Having also learned of the plot, the English and German governments send a squadron of volors which destroy Rome in retaliation.
In London, mobs crucify Christians and lynch priests, shaking Mabel's faith in Humanitarianism. Oliver attempts to console her, explaining that England needs to be purged of Christianity, and admits that the police have been ordered to stand down.
At the Feast of Maternity, Felsenburgh enters the Cathedral dressed in the red and black robes of a British High Court judge and laments the destruction of Rome and the recent pogroms against Christians. He leads the assembled worshipers in prayer to the "Mother of us all". Those present acclaim Felsenburgh as God.
Cardinals Franklin and Steinmann travel to the deathbed of the only other living cardinal. They hold a Papal Conclave, and Franklin is elected Pope, taking the name Sylvester III. Pope Sylvester reorganises the Church to operate in secrecy. He rebuilds the College of Cardinals, and his name and location (Nazareth) are known only to them.
Felsenburgh orders that everyone either disavow the existence of God or be executed. Unable to bear the mass executions, Mabel leaves her husband and checks into a euthanasia clinic. Oliver tries in vain to find her. After the mandatory eight-day waiting period, Mabel writes a suicide letter to Oliver and kills herself.
Cardinal Dolgorovski converts to Humanitarianism and informs the government of a secret meeting between Franklin and the remaining cardinals, so Felsenburgh plans to destroy Nazareth. Pope Sylvester receives word of Dolgorovski's suspicious behavior and warns the city's residents to flee, but remains with the cardinals and offers Mass followed by Eucharistic Adoration. As firebombs rain down on Nazareth, Pope Sylvester and the cardinals chant the Pange Lingua before a Host exposed in a monstrance on the altar. The novel ends: "Then this world passed, and the glory of it".
Background
Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, a former High Church Anglican priest, began writing Lord of the World two years after his conversion to Roman Catholicism rocked the Church of England in 1903.
The youngest son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, and the society hostess Mary Sidgwick Benson, Benson was descended from a very long line of Anglican clergy. He had also read the litany at his father's 1896 funeral at Canterbury Cathedral and was widely expected to one day take his father's place as the most senior cleric in the Anglican Communion. After a crisis of faith described in his 1913 memoir Confessions of a Convert, however, Benson was received into the Catholic Church on 11 September 1903.Joseph Pearce (2006), Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief, Ignatius Press, pp. 17–27.
According to Joseph Pearce, "The press made much of the story that the son of the former Archbishop of Canterbury had become a Catholic, and the revelation rocked the Anglican establishment in a way reminiscent of the days of the Oxford Movement and the conversion of Newman."Pearce (2006), p. 27.
Benson was inundated with hate mail from Anglican clergy, men, women, and children. He was accused of being "a deliberate traitor", "an infatuated fool", and of bringing dishonour upon his father's name and memory. Although he replied scrupulously to every letter, Benson was deeply hurt. He later wrote that he received considerable solace in the words that an Anglican bishop had spoken to his mother, "Remember that he has followed his conscience after all, and what else could his father wish for him than that?"Pearce (2006), pp. 27–28.
After his ordination as a Catholic priest in Rome in 1904, Benson was assigned as a Catholic chaplain at Cambridge University. It was during his time in Cambridge that Lord of the World was conceived and written.
Inception According to Benson's biographer, Cyril Martindale, the idea of a novel about the Antichrist was first suggested to him in December 1905 by his friend and literary mentor Frederick Rolfe, who also introduced him to the writings of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, a French Utopian Socialist.
According to Martindale, as Benson read Saint-Simon's writings, "A vision of a dechristianised civilisation, sprung from the wrecking of the old régime, arose before him and he listened to Mr. Rolfe's suggestion that he should write a book on Antichrist."Martindale (1916) Volume II, p. 65.
Writing during the pontificate of Pope Pius X and before the First World War, Benson accurately predicted interstate highways, weapons of mass destruction, the use of aircraft to drop bombs on both military and civilian targets, and passenger air travel in advanced Zeppelins called "Volors". Writing in 1916, Martindale compared Benson's ideas for future technology with those of the French science fiction novelist Jules Verne.Martindale (1916), p. 78.
Like many other Catholics of the era in which he wrote, Benson believed in Masonic conspiracy theories and shared the political and economic views of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
Influences Benson drew upon history, other works of science fiction, and current events to create a fictional universe.
Literature Frederick Rolfe's anti-Modernist satirical novel Hadrian VII inspired numerous aspects of Lord of the World, including the introductory first chapter.Martindale (1916) Volume 2. pp. 68–69.
According to his biographer, Cyril Martindale, Benson's depiction of the future was in many ways an inversion of the science fiction novels of H. G. Wells.Martindale (1916), pages 69, 78. Like many other Christians of the era, Benson was sickened by Wells' belief that Atheism, Marxism, World Government, and Eugenics would lead to an earthly utopia. Due to his depiction of a Wellsian future as a murderous global police state, Benson's novel has been called one of the first modern works of dystopian science fiction.
History A further source of inspiration was Benson's interest in history.
Percy Franklin's constant fear of arrest while carrying out his priestly ministry in London is inspired by Benson's research into the aftermath of the English Reformation—indeed, Benson would later write a historical novel, Come Rack! Come Rope! (1912), set during that time. Franklin's suspicion that Francis may have become a police informant and his belief that Mrs. Brand's request for a priest is a trap to ensnare him are reminiscent of the tactics used by Elizabethan Era priest hunters like Sir Richard Topcliffe.
Julian Felsenburgh's leadership style was modelled after that of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose mistakes he was intended to correct. In one of the three notebooks he kept while writing Lord of the World, Benson wrote that while Napoleon's weakness was "his soft heart: he forgave," Felsenburgh, "never forgives: for political crime he strips of position, making the man incapable of holding office; for treachery to himself he drops them out of his councils." He further described the Anti-Christ as "complete hardness, and kindness".
The word, "Recusants", which Franklin uses to describe Catholics who absent themselves from compulsory Humanist worship, dates from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The word was originally used to describe both Catholics and Puritans who, despite heavy fines and imprisonment, refused to attend weekly Anglican services.
As acknowledged in the text, the character of Cardinal Dolgorovski of Moscow is inspired by Judas Iscariot.Martindale (1916), page 74.Benson (2011), pages 240–244.
The word Test Act for Felsenburgh's legislative means to root out Catholicism is no invention of his or of his author. There were Test Acts passed in England intended for that purpose.