Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 86 1-66] THE CAI KTOU X TRIAL ^51
But it gave fresh strength to Bishop Colenso in his resolve
to protest altogether against the jurisdiction claimed by
Bishop Gray.
The trial took place, as arranged, in the Cathedral
Church of Capetown, in November 1863.
The Bishop of
Capetown sat in person as judge, with Bishop Cotterill of
Grahamstown and Bishop Twells of Orange Free State-
as his assessors. It is easy to criticise, and even to
ridicule, the proceedings at this quasi-trial, conducted in a
manner, to say the least, unusual, and unaided by the
presence of any legal assessor or lay judge. But it is
impossible to read the voluminous record of what passed
without recognising the extreme difficulty of the position
in which Bishop Gray and those who felt with him had
been placed. Their strongest religious convictions had
been roughly or contemptuously assaulted by a brother
Bishop, whose undisputed oath of canonical obedience
seemed certainly to put him in some sense under Bishop
Gray s jurisdiction. The case was altogether new in the
history of the Colonial Church. Every successive decision
in the law courts seemed to increase the confusion sur
rounding the whole position of Colonial Bishops in the
growing autonomy of Colonial government. What was
the value of their Letters Patent? Were such Bishops
amenable to the ecclesiastical law of England ? If so,
with whom did it rest to try them in case of offence? If
not, to what law were they amenable ? What was the
real value and extent of a Metropolitan s authority ? WT
hat
appeal, if any, lay from his decision ? On all these ques
tions, and a score of others, the lawyers were hopeless!}-
at sea, and gave contradictory advice at every turn.
"It would not have been greatly to be wondered at," wrote
Bishop Gray, "if a few clergy in a distant land, without any great
amount of learning or ability, and without the opportunity of con-