The Henson Journals

[160]

Thursday, February 7th, 1918.

1284th day

I received the Holy Communion in the Palace Chapel. After breakfast I walked to Westminster, & robed in Bishop Boyd Carpenter's house in the cloisters. Then we went together to Buckingham Palace, & I did homage – a quaint ceremony. Afterwards, the King had some talk with me. He has evidently heard a great deal about my appointment. Probably he has been more disturbed than he acknowledged. From the Palace I went to the Convocation, and there spent most of the day, not very serviceably. In the course of the proceedings I spoke several times, but ineffectively. After the House had risen, I walked to the Athenaeum, & there revised, packed, & sent off to George Macmillan the remaining sermons of the projected volume. William Temple & his wife came to dinner at Lambeth, & at table I sate between them. The Archbishop devoted himself to Temple most of the evening: & I seemed to discern an ominous connexion between this intimacy & the "Life & Liberty" movement. I see in the "Guardian" that Lord Hugh Cecil had given notice of a motion in the House of Laymen, praying the Archbishop & Bishops to make sure that no man is admitted to Holy Orders who does not believe in the Virgin Birth, &c. I do not doubt that such a motion will have an easy course in such an assembly: & that the debate will galvanize into fresh activity the campaign against the luckless Bishop of Hereford.

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