The Henson Journals

[108]

Friday, January 4th, 1918.

1250th day

The Chapter of Hereford meets today in order to elect a Bishop under the singular conditions of a congé d'élire, and they are required to elect the Dean of Durham. The situation is unusually interesting for it brings to the test a whole volume of ecclesiastical pretension, which has recently become coherent & clamorous as a demand for "autonomy". Great efforts have certainly been made by the English Church Union to bring pressure to bear on the prebendaries in order to induce them to take the unprecedented course of rejecting the King's nominee. The "Church Times" has overflowed with denunciations of the Dean as a heretick, an incorrigibly frivolous person, a chronic law–breaker, and so forth. All that the "Church Times" provided, has been faithfully echoed by the "Hereford Times", whose editor is chairman of the local branch of the E.C.U. The Dean & Chapter are no doubt ready to elect, but between them and the Prebendaries there appears to be no good understanding; so that this occasion may be seized for demonstrating "independence". It is said that the incumbents are generally "High", and that they have been led to assume that, when the "Egyptian night" of the Percival regime had at last ended, they would have been recompensed for their long tribulation by receiving a "High" bishop! The disillusionment & disappointment which my appointment has undoubtedly brought them, provide a favourable soil in which to plant the seeds of an agitation.

[109]

When I returned from a walk with Linetta about 4 p.m. I found a telegram from Wynne–Willson awaiting me. It ran thus:–

“Elected by Chapter. Nineteen present. Four only did not sign.”

This surmounts the first obstacle. It remains to be seen what success the Dervishes will have at the Confirmation on January 23rd.

Two more Bishops – Rochester and Bath and Wells – have written to me. R.'s letter was long & embarrassed. The gist of it was to ask for some re–assurance on doctrinal points. I replied at once thanking the bishop, declining to make any statement either of explanation or of apology, and sending him a copy of "Notes of my Ministry". There is no possible doubt in my own mind that I do represent a far wider conception of the Church of England than any Bishop now on the Bench, and that hardly any of their Lordships would care to stand before the public as my supporter, if my true position were truly perceived. And I am at the same time fully persuaded that my position is essentially sound, compatible with the pledges of the Consecration Service, and capable of being made intelligible to English people. In this week's "Guardian" Jimmy Adderley writes as my oldest friend in order to disprove the accusation of instability, so persistently urged against me by my enemies. He says that he has a letter of mine written on the eve of my Ordination in which I set forward the same view of the Episcopate as that which I now maintain. In the "Challenge" Temple describes me as in most things an unteachable Conservative!

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