2 - Peace and Order? Anglican Responses to Revision

Summary

Anglican establishment figures tended to recite a similar narrative regarding the story of the Prayer Book measure. An editorial in the Church of England Newspaper in July 1927 argued that the book was supported by ‘the vast majority of Churchpeople’ and that the proposals, followed by reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts, would ‘strengthen the hands of the bishops in their efforts to restore order and discipline’. The main opposition, it was asserted, came from a minority of zealous and fanatical Protestants and a few intransigent and Romeward-leaning Anglo-Catholics. In the opinion of Archbishop Davidson, the ‘majority of sane opinion’ was in favour of the measure, though commonsensical churchmen were not as ‘vociferous’ as the Protestant opposition. At convocations in April, Bishop Henson of Durham claimed that the anti-revision movement revolved around a modern-day Simon of Stylites, Bishop Bertram Pollock of Norwich, at whose rigid and remote pillar gathered a collection of dark and moribund societies – a ‘Protestant underworld’ – in opposition to the bishops. G. K. A. Bell's biography of Davidson states clearly the view of the Anglican establishment on the matter – opposition came from the ‘extremists of both parties’, while on the Protestant side it was the ‘extreme Evangelicals’ who opposed the measure.

Such accounts do not accurately portray the true level of Anglican division over revision. It is impossible, of course, to measure with full accuracy the feeling of the communicants of the national Church on the revision question, and this chapter will not attempt to do so. The Anglican establishment relied on the votes of convocations, the Church Assembly and the Diocesan Conferences, all of which were in favour of revision, as an indicator of rank-and-file Church feeling; however, while these voting results are significant, the bodies in question tended to reflect only the views of ‘higher’ and officially minded clergy and laity, and not necessarily the national clerical and lay opinion. The proposals gained the support of the Church's elite, but did they win over ‘normal’ Anglicans? Certainly, the ‘delicately adjusted compromise’ proposed by the bishops between the various fractious sections of the Church failed to achieve its aims.