The Henson Journals

[102]

Thursday, January 8th, 1920.

[Reading: Rashdall's Atonement.]

Pollard's chapter on 'Cranmer's character & private life' is the truest estimate of the Archbishop that I have encountered. It should be set beside the cruel caricature which Macaulay drew, & which was shamelessly welcomed by the Tractarians. Stubb's portrait of Henry VIII is also very admirable. Gairdner was bred a Dissenter, but subsequently became an "Anglo–Catholick", and his historical work is deeply coloured by the prejudices of that type of fanatick.

The "Times" contains another horrifying description of the Bolshevists: but nothing makes the smallest impression on our artisans, who have made up their minds that all reports of atrocities in Russia are manufactured by the capitalists for their own purposes. Moreover, everybody is agreed that it would be wholly impossible for Great Britain to renew the War. In face of that fact, there is little advantage in working up public feeling against the Bolshevists.

I walked with Lilley for a while, but the boisterous wind and gusts of rain rendered walking an unpleasant exertion. Fearne Booker arrived.

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