WITH SOME NOTES ON BISHOPS BY ERNEST HAROLD PEARCE Litt.D., D.D., F.S.A. BISHOP OF WORCESTER LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO. Printed in Great Britain 1926 W9P43 EPISTLE DEDICATORY MY DEAR BISHOP OF LONDON,-I believe that when you write a preface to a book, it becomes "best-seller " almost by instinct. But, if I put you in the forefront of this volume, my eye is not towards royalties; after a not inconsiderable series of productions for which there has been a scanty and somewhat supercilious market, I have no delusions on that score, neither am I vain enough to suppose that a letter dedicatory written to you will have the effect of a letter commendatory written by you. But at the moment you are far away. One of those crusades, for which your predecessors and mine were in the habit of giving licences of non-residence to almost anyone except themselves, has taken you from us. Matthew Arnold was thinking of the likes of you when he wrote of St. Brandan sailing the northern main : The brotherhoods of saints are glad. He greets them once, he sails again. You will add to the joy and the faith of those whom you visit, and a mere stay-at-home has no right, even if it were possible, to worry you with requests for permission. Now, there are two sufficient reasons why, by your leave or without it, I should inscribe this record with your name. The one applies to your office and the other to your person. The Bishop of London is one of the very few men in this country who hold their homes by a tenure longer than that by which the Bishops of Worcester have enjoyed possession of the manor of Hartlebury; you can count more than thirteen centuries, whereas we fall short of eleven; we can imagine more, though proof fails us. But when I turn to Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, I am in the presence of a man to whom Hartlebury means M656818 more than it does to most men. For your doughty Protestant grandfather lived here from 1841 to 1860, and to your mother the castle was home. I have tried in this book to write true history, and I would not err even in a dedication; but I think I have heard you say that here there took place at that period quite a series of" interesting events," and that you yourself would in due course have been born here, if your right reverend grandfather had not decided that the series was already sufficiently long for his comfort. So you were fated to see the light at Stanford-on-Teme, and let me tell you (though you know it) that there is not a fairer spot even in this county than that familiar rectory. Your grandfather's decision, while I sympathise with him, has always seemed to me to involve a real hardship to the bishop of later days and higher income-tax. I could have set up a feretrum in the very room, and the gifts of the faithful would soon have rivalled the wealth poured long ago upon the shrines of St. Oswald and St. Wulstan in the cathedral; with this difference, that only the half of the offerings at those older shrines fell to the bishop, whereas I should be sole custos of your feretrum here; dilapidations would cease to be a burden and the terror of super-tax would fail. So I content myself with the reflection that you must have been brought here before you had completed your second year; for (though no one would think it) you were born in 1858 and Bishop Pepys died in 1860; wherefore, as I introduce my visitors to the north wing, I am tempted to indicate that the nursery was somewhere up its lovely staircase (as far removed as possible from his lordship's great bedroom near the chapel). Nay, as I turn out the last light at night and retire to my northern chamber, I have even caught myself in the act of cocking an anxious, nurse-like ear up that staircase, as if to make sure that that dratted Master Arthur was still asleep. And you grew up so near here, and Severn means so much to you, that you will not wonder if one who lives here wants other folk to know about it, though, of course, he can only assign the odd half-hours of a busy life to the |