The Henson Journals

[179]

Friday, January 23rd, 1925.

Richard Frankand (1630–1698) was "put into the rich vicarage of Bishop Auckland, Durham, some time before August 1659" by Sir Arthur Haslerig [sic]. Here he was settled when Bishop Cosin came to the see. The Bishop, however, "did not interfere with a peaceable man," and when "an attorney named Bowster" made trouble, he exerted himself to protect him: "Bowster, with a neighbouring clergyman" got possession of the keys & locked Frankland out of his church. He indicted them for riot, but the case was dismissed at the assizes for a technical flaw in the indictment. Cosin now offered to institute Frankland and give him higher preferment if he wd receive episcopal ordination. He even proposed, but without result, to ordain him conditionally, and 'so privately that the people might not know of it'. By the act of 1661 Frankland was confirmed in the possession of his living: but the uniformity act of the following year ejected him.

Dict. of Nat. Biography. Art. 'Frankland'.

What doctrine of Holy Orders is implied in Cosin's proposal? and what in Frankland's refusal of it? and which doctrine is most agreeable to God's Word, and most acceptable to the Christian conscience? Cosin was more a statesman than a Christian, or even than a "Catholick"!

[180]

It occurred to me that it might be worth my while to write to Sir Clifford Allbutt, and ask him whether the views expressed over his signature in "Medicine and the Church", published as long ago as 1910, expressed the views which he holds today. One never knows how far the tremendous experiences of the War may have altered opinion. Accordingly, I copied out the salient passage, and sent it to the author, requesting his present views on the phenomenon of "faith–healing". Then I spent the morning in reading.

Brooke Westcott came to fetch his wife. He lunched, & afterwards walked round the Park with me. He and his wife went off before tea–time. Mrs Cruickshank, & her brother, a person named Whickham, came to tea. I charged her to stir up her husband on the subject of the authenticity of St Cuthbert's remains, which the crafty malice of the Papists has again brought into public questioning. The blundering ignorance & vanity of the Dean have brought so many interests into peril.

Boutflower sends me the notice of the Anglo–Catholic Congress, which he (and no doubt every other clergyman in the diocese) has received. They say impudently that "unless they hear to the contrary within a week they will assume that he wishes his name to appear" as a supporter!

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