The Henson Journals

[39]

Friday, November 2nd, 1923.

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"The idea of the Petrine succession was a developing idea, that of the Caesarian succession was a waning and diminishing one: the latter was the declining from a great fact, the ancient dignity & power of imperial Rome; the former was the growth into a great fiction, the temporal supremacy of papal Rome".

Bp. Stubbs "Medieval & Modern History" p. 246

This is acute, true, and extremely suggestive. It explains much.

Strong told me that Westcott, who was much interested in gardening, constructed the rock garden in front of "Scotland". He was very fond of the view from the great staircase over Binchester, & would ever stop to look at it when he passed to the Chapel. Westcott was a man of a masterful temperament, & resentful of the very appearance of dictation. He soon fell out with Watkins, who was much given to directing his superiors. Old Tristam rather startled Lightfoot by telling him that Watkins was as a black cloud between him and his diocese: &, after that, he had not been so completely dominated by the Archdeacon. Yet when Westcott replaced Lightfoot in S. Cuthbert's chair it was commonly said that the new episcopate would always be famous as having secured the eclipsing of Watkins! In Lightfoot's time the students occupied the rooms in "Scotland": Westcott, who wanted the whole Castle for his numerous family, removed them to the house near the Gate. That house is now let to a private tenant by the Commissioners.

[40]

Where Protestantism was an idea only, as in Spain and Italy, it was crushed out by the Inquisition: where, in conjunction with political power and sustained by ecclesiastical confiscation, it became a physical force, there it was lasting. It is not a pleasant view to take of the doctrinal change to see that, where the movement towards it was pure & unworldly, it failed; where it was seconded by territorial greed and political animosity, it succeeded. But so it has been with many of the changes by which in the long run both Church & world have been benefited. In the case of the English reformation, it is certain that without the redistribution of monastic estates the change must have been long delayed, & might have been suddenly and permanently reversed.

Stubbs I.e. 268

The Bishop of Ripon went off in his motor after breakfast. Then I fell to reading until lunch. Afterwards I changed a cheque, & took the dogs for a turn round the Park. The weather was brilliant and everything looked its best.

The "Times" has some astonishing revelations about the Republicans of the Rhineland, whom the French are imposing by violence on the German population. It appears that most of them have been convicted in former years of serious crimes! They are actively engaged in destroying the police records.

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