The Henson Journals

[13]

Thursday, May 2nd, 1918.

1368th day

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The weather became milder. I spent the day in Convocation, and lunched with Gamble. Just before the afternoon session began, the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped up to my seat, and said: "On the balance of the two speeches, yours & Gore's, I think you were in the right". I replied that I was glad to know that his Grace thought so, but that I myself on the whole was disposed to regret having spoken at all. "Well, since you say that", said the Archbishop, "I will say that I wish you hadn't". So it stands at that. Everybody feels that I had great provocation: & everybody wishes that I had not yielded to it. And that is substantially my own view of the episode. The Bishop of Bristol moved a resolution, the effect of which was to "call a halt" in the process of treating the decisions of Convocation as if they possessed statutory authority. Gore supported this in a speech of characteristic extravagance. The Bishop of Winchester was opposed, & spoke with much sophistical acuteness, though at the end he acquiesced in the vote. I spoke in support of the motion, criticising both Gore & Talbot with some freedom. In the end the motion was adopted nem. con. Then I went with the Bishop of Bristol to have tea with Colonel & Mrs Burdon. I returned to the Athenaeum for dinner, & was there joined by Mead–Falkner, who induced me to enlarge my meal to the utmost limits of this frugal time! But it is a rare & notable thing to meet a friend in these strenuous days, and we may well be pardoned if we make of it a festival.

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