The Henson Journals

[106]

Tuesday, August 9th, 1910. Rose Castle.

Glorious weather. We spent the time before lunch in viewing Rose Castle, and its grounds: & in going [for] a stroll through the meadows to the village Church. We took several photographs in the course of these proceedings.

Rose Castle is a fine building of pink sandstone; it is of various dates. The Strickland Tower & the Kitchen being the oldest parts. It is surrounded by a broad moat now forming a fine kitchen garden. The flower gardens laid out in the formal Dutch fashion are good. An early 19th century Bishop, Percy, worked great improvements in the castle. He restored the chapel, using in the work much excellent oak panelling (linen–pattern) from Lambeth, to which he had access thro' his wife, the Abp's daughter. Little appears to be known of the history of the building. The name is ancient for Edward I dated a charter from 'la Rose.'

After lunch, the Bishop & I had a long conversation together sitting in the garden. He is an odd mixture of shrewdness & vanity, perhaps also of coarseness & sentiment. Mainly he impressed me as genuinely anxious to make a fight against the dominant Tractarianism, but woefully embarrassed by the poor quality of his associates.

[107]

He told me that Straton, the Bp. of Newcastle, is greatly successful within his diocese. All the diocesan funds are flourishing, & he himself is the idol of the people. Yet so successfully do the Tractarians obscure these facts, that in general belief he is a bull–necked tyrant of the narrowest sympathies, & nothing more. I agree that the 'log–rolling' & 'belittling' of that party are very potent & mischievous factors.

I urged him to use his powers as Ordinary under the Rubrick to put forward a schedule of Lessons & Psalms to be used in stead of the undesirable ones provided in the Prayer–book. It seemed a new idea to him that he could to this, & promised to consider the matter.

He said that he regarded my present position as the greatest in some ways in the C. of E:; that he would not exchange it for any bpk.; that my influence was wider than that of any bp. But this seemed to me but little convincing: though I admit that from some points of view it wd be difficult to find a better strategic position.

After tea we bade farewell, & came away. Our 'tourist ticket' did not serve us from Carlisle to Ruthwell. We arrived at the last at 7.5 p.m., were met there by the motor, & driven to Murraythwaite.

---