The Henson Journals

[172]

4th Sunday in Lent, March 14th, 1926.

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I stayed in bed, had my breakfast in bed, & received the doctor in bed, only getting up after his departure about 11 a.m. And all the while I did not feel other than normally well. Invalidishness is a demoralizing moss which grows quickly over the character, when once the control of one's actions has been surrendered into the hands of wives, doctors, & servants! I have observed this phenomenon so often in the case of others, that I must be on guard against coming under its influence myself. Still, public exhibitions like that of last Sunday night are sufficiently humiliating to make it worthwhile taking precautions against their repetition. In bed I solaced myself by reading Pastor's account of Adrian VIth's pontificate. I am disposed to think that this honest, rather dull, & quite unimaginative Reformer is the most pathetic figure in the long line of the Popes. He may well be bracketted [sic] with Savonarola, who was also sincere, dull, and without imagination. The pontiff was of a cold temperament: the monk was a fiery soul – that is the real difference between them. Neither had insight, or originality, or sympathy. And both were martyrs, victims of their intractable temperaments.

[173] [symbol]

I wrote to William, and to my brother, Arthur. In the afternoon I walked round the Park with Ernest. The mild fine weather had drawn out a large number of young folks. On returning to my room I wrote to acknowledge letters of inquiry from Dr Hutton, Lady Thurlow, the Bishop of Birmingham, and my godson Gilbert.

It appears that no less than 21 peers, who voted in the division on the Shewsbury Bishoprick Measure, were members of the Church Assembly. Of these 3 voted against, and 18 in favour of the Resolution. These votes must be deducted from the total, if the opinion of the House, is to be rightly gauged, for all of them had been already given in the Church Assembly. The numbers would then be for the Resolution 42, against 58 – a majority against the measure, not of one vote, but of 16 votes. Nor is this all. A number of peers who had come down to the House intending to vote for the Resolution were so impressed by the debate that they didn't vote at all. Two of them – the Lord Chancellor and Lord Bledisloe – told me that this was the case with themselves, and they were certainly not alone. Everybody attributes the result to my speech.

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