to offer Canterbury to the Dean of St. Paul's, it was generally believed that Her Majesty forbade the nomination of Canon Liddon to any of the greater Sees. Liddon's offence was neither his celibacy nor his High Church doctrine. He had on one occasion, during the first fervour of the revolt against the Turkish alliance, let himself go against the Turk and his backer Beaconsfield in a fashion which Her Majesty is said neither to have forgotten nor forgiven. This may be so or it may not. Liddon believed it himself, and it certainly was extraordinary that, although he was the intimate friend of both Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, bishopric after bishopric was given to far inferior men, while the Chrysostom of the English pulpit was left to live and die as Canon of St. Paul's.*

The secrets of the Royal Closet are guarded so jealously that no one can say with certainty, save those who stand nearest the Throne and the Prime Minister, how much Royal favour or prejudice counts in ecclesiastical matters. The Prime Minister always assumes the responsibility for the nomination, especially when it is made against his own wishes. Of this there is a notable instance in the case of Archbishop Tait. When the Bishopric of London was offered him, the appointment having been really pressed upon Lord Palmerston by Lord Shaftesbury, the Premier wrote:

"I have much pleasure in informing you that I have received the Queen's commands to offer you the See of London."

But when Disraeli offered him the Archbishopric of Canterbury twelve years later, he wrote

"It is my desire, if it meet your own wishes, to recommend Her Majesty to elevate you to the

BISHOP WILBERFORCE.

(Published by John Murray.)

Primacy. I can assure you in so doing, I feel a responsibility as grave as any your Lordship can experience if you accept this paramount trust; but I believe that I am taking a course which will be most serviceable to the Church, especially at this critical moment in its history."

Who would imagine from reading this Disraelitish epistle that the nomination of Tait had been forced upon the Prime Minister by the Queen? Such, however, was the case, as we may read in the vivacious and veracious chronicles of Bishop Wilberforce. The passages describing this notable and significant incident in the disposal of the Royal patronage are not so familiar to the general reader as they might be. Disraeli had written proposing to nominate Tait on November 12th. On that day

Mr. Gladstone writes me that these reports were without foundation. Lord Salisbury offered Dr. Liddon St. Albans, which he declined.

Wilberforce, who was then staying at Blenheim, heard from his hostess that the Dean of Windsor's wife had announced Tait's appointment. Wilberforce on the next day wrote in his diary :—

"November 13th.-Wrote a good deal. Walked with Lord Churchill round Park. The Duke told me of Disraeli's excitement when he came out of Royal Closet. Some struggle about the Primacy, Lord Malmesbury also said that when he spoke to Disraeli he said, 'Don't bring any more bothers before me; I have enough to drive a man mad.' My belief is that the Queen pressed Tait, and against possibly Ely, or some such appointment."—"Life of Bishop Wilberforce," vol. iii., p. 267.

Sixteen days later he had an opportunity of talking to the Dean himself. After wards he made the following entry in his diary :

"The Church does not know what it owes to the Queen. Disraeli has been utterly ignorant, utterly unprincipled; he rode the Protestant horse one day; then got frightened that it had gone too far, and was injuring the county elections, so he went right round and proposed names never heard of. Nothing he would not have done; but throughout he was most hostile to you; he alone prevented London being offered to you. The Queen looked for Tait, but would have agreed to you."—Ib., vol. iii., p. 268. "Disraeli recommended for Canterbury!!! the Queen would not have him; then Disraeli agreed most reluctantly and with passion to Tait. Disraeli then proposed Wordsworth for London. The Queen objected strongly; no experience; passing over bishops, &c.; then she suggested Jackson, and two others, not you, because of Disraeli's expressed hostility, and Disraeli chose Jackson.

"How can — have got that secret understanding with Disraeli ? You are surrounded by false double-dealing men. Disraeli opposed Leighton with all his strength on every separate occasion. The Queen would have greatly liked him, but Disraeli would not hear of him. You cannot conceive the appointments he proposed and retracted or was overruled; he pressed Champneys for Peterborough ; he had no other thought than the votes of the moment; he showed an ignorance about all Church matters, men, opinions, that was astonishing, making propositions one way and the other, riding the Protestant horse to gain the boroughs, and then, when he thought he had gone so far as to endanger the counties, turning round and appointing Bright and Gregory; thoroughly unprincipled fellow. I trust we may never have such a man again.”—Ib., vol. iii., p. 269.

The name left blank in the diary is supposed to have been Ellicott. The reasons given by the Queen for refusing to promote the good Bishop of Gloucester were said to be more domestic than theological. It is admitted, however, that the Queen's choice. was much the best that could have been made. She has always regarded the appointment to Canterbury as one of special interest to the Crown. The Primate is Chief Court Chaplain, central celebrant at all family functions from christenings and burials. But, as the foregoing extract shows, her interest was by no means confined to the Primacy. It is to her credit that we must place the selection of Dean Magee, afterwards Archbishop of York, for the See of Peterborough. Disraeli's choice was Champneys. But when he was overruled and the appointment went to Magee, no one was quicker to claim credit for the selection than the astute Benjamin, who, as we have seen, also posed as nominator of Tait, to whose selection he had agreed most reluctantly, and "with passion."

We are too near the recent appointments to know what part the Queen played in the selection either of Dr. Benson or Dr. Temple. It is, however, generally believed. that she pressed for Benson because of the declared preference expressed by Archbishop Tait, in whose judgment and good sense she had implicit confidence. It is also probable that the decision to promote Dr. Temple was one in which the Queen's voice was more potent than Lord Salisbury's. Equally evident is the Royal favour in the translation of Dr. Creighton from Peterborough to London, and the nomination of Dr. Carr-Glyn to the vacant See.

Queen Elizabeth used to tune her pulpits, as Carlyle remarks modern rulers inspire • newspapers. The Homilies which she ordered to be read from the pulpit, the Book of Martyrs which she ordered to be exposed for perusal in every church, indicated the practical determination of the great Tudor Princess to use her spiritual apparatus for teaching the people what she thought they needed to learn. Victoria has never made any attempt at such pulpit tuning. But her influence has been pretty steadily exerted in the direction of a broad rationalism.

H

The Court has held fast to the weightier matters of the law, to purity, righteousness, and godly living, but it has paid scant regard to such tithe of mint and anise and cumin as the ecclesiastical observances. The Heir to the Throne was married in Mid Lent, to the no small scandal of the High Church party, some of whose zealous pulpiteers did not hesitate to attack the Queen in their sermons for disregarding the Solemn Fast. In the selection of her chaplains she has seldom favoured those who preach high doctrine. Her ideal of a bishop is probably not far removed from that of Lord Palmerston, whose "wicked appointments" were so bitterly deplored by the Anglicans. A Bishop, said Lord Palmerston, must be a good and proper man, who would get

on well with Dissenters. Lord Shaftesbury, who was Palmerston's Bishop-maker, wrote:

"He was always anxious that they should be good men, active, zealous, and sound members of the Church of England. He regarded any approximation to Popery, Popish doctrines, and Popish practices with special dislike and even fear. From the commencement I obtained his full assent that, on all occasions, men should be selected who would be moderate and decent in their language towards Nonconformists, and civil in their personal intercourse with them. He felt, as I did, the folly, nay, the iniquity of haughty sacerdotal bearing, of vituperative epithets, of clerical despotism towards the body of Dissenters; he saw, too, and resolved if he could to obviate the danger of such an ecelesiastical arrogance."

Therein Lord Palmerston was at one with the Queen. Her Majesty has been true to the Elizabethan tradition. Green's language about Elizabeth can with but little alteration be applied to Victoria :

"The young Queen was not without a sense of religion. But she was almost wholly destitute of spiritual emotion or of any consciousness of the vast questions with which theology strove to deal. While the world around her was being swayed more and more by theological beliefs and controversies,

Elizabeth was absolutely untouched by them. She had no sort of religious aversion from either Puritan or Papist. She looked at theological differences in a purely political light. The first interest in her own mind was the interest of public order, and she never could understand how it could fail to be first in every one's mind."

This verdict would be harsh if pronounced on our Queen, who is by no means destitute of spiritual emotion. But with the exception of that phrase, the passage applies fairly well. If in the interest of public order we read the welfare of the common weal and the well-being of the common people, the extract would read as a fair description of the Queen's attitude. Tait was her ideal Archbishop, Norman Macleod her favourite Chaplain. Lady Augusta Stanley, wife of the Dean of Westminster, was for years her daily correspondent. Her real work-a-day religion was worship of her

husband, and the Prince Consort was a German rationalist, devout, no doubt, but with absolutely no room in his brain for the notions to which Anglican clerics attach supreme importance. A memorandum of his in 1851, in the midst of a No-Popery hubbub caused by Papal aggression, expresses with brevity and cogency the point of view from which the Court regards the Church.

The Church of England, the Prince pointed out, has been crippled by a premature decision on the details of Church government and doctrine which were finally settled for posterity at the Reformation. Thus the Church has been prevented from participating in that constant and free development which the State has been able to derive from the broad principles of Magna Charta. To remedy matters, and put the Church on its true basis, the Prince proposed

"(I.) That the Laity have an equal share of authority in the Church with the Clergy.

"(2.) That no alteration in the form of Divine Service shall therefore be made by the Clergy without the formal consent of the Laity.

"(3.) Nor any interpretation given of Articles of Faith without their concurrence."

"This principle once recognised as law, a whole living Church Constitution will spring from it, including Church government and doctrines." From this it will be seen how many million miles apart are the ideas of the Court and those of clerics who, thanks to their notions of apostolical succession, confound their order with the Church, and their authority with the will of God,

There is little doubt from this and other passages that the Prince Consort, and therefore the Queen, was prepared to welcome the rationalistic reformation which, in the opinion of probably the majority of her subjects, would have made Her Majesty's title, "The Defender of the Faith," appear almost as ironical as the use of the title by Henry VIII. must have appeared to the Pope after he broke with Rome, Bishop Wilberforce mentions on one occasion having a discussion with Her Majesty upon the Athanasian Creed and the shortened service then under discussion in Convocation; but although he notes that the Queen's mind was open to all views of truth, he judiciously abstains from chronicling any of her observations on either subject. We are, however, not left in doubt as to the opinion of the Prince Consort on such matters. He had a famous passage of arms with Bishop Wilberforce himself on the subject of the miracle of the Gadarene swine-one which was afterwards destined to afford a battleground between Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley.

But that is by no means the only indication of the theological views of him who was the lord and master of the Supreme Governor of the Church. In 1847 there was a great storm in the Ecclesiastical Teacup of Anglican orthodoxy over the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford. Dr. Hampden was regarded as a heretic by the High Churchmen of Oxford, and his nomination to a bishopric caused a great hubbub, which led to an interchange of views between Prince Albert and his vigilant mentor, Baron Stockmar. The Baron, for instance, writes :—

"In ecclesiastical matters fanaticism and hypocrisy have reached a pitch which makes reaction and conflict inevitable. Probably in course of time the masses will be brought by agitation to bear upon this question as, through Cobden's influence, they have done upon that of the Corn Laws. Then, and not till then, will Parliament take courage out of fear; that is, the timorous hypocrites will be afraid of continuing to uphold orthodox folly against the rights of reason and conscience."

The Prince wrote sympathetically a month later, saying:-"The Hampden controversy is not yet at an end. One article upon it cites a passage from Dr. Johnson, which will delight you if you do not already know it: A dogmatist is not far from a bigot, and runs in great danger of becoming a bloody persecutor;'" and to this the Prince appends the approving remark, "How very true." He praises also Combe's excellent pamphlet on education, in which he defines the real mission of science and education; "but," says the Prince, "these good people say he is an infidel to the last