Mark Chapman | Matthias Grebe | Friederike Nüssel | Frank-Dieter Fischbach (Eds.): Towards Interchangeability (Leseprobe)

Christian world. 12 By the early 1840s, Kaye was becoming horrified by
Newman’s readiness to remould and potentially sacrifice the Church of
England’s historic formularies (the Thirty-nine Articles) in pursuit of his
own preconceived notion of what was primitive. He also had to cope with
the early conversion to Rome of one of his diocesan clergy, Bernard Smith
of Leadenham, in 1841, and the large amount of hostile press coverage of
what was then seen as a major scandal. 13 Newman’s own conversion in
1845 merely confirmed what was becoming a prevalent view that Newman
had been destabilising the Church from within, promoting ideas, such as
apostolic succession, which are not implied in the Thirty-nine Articles, or
indeed in the Book of Common Prayer ordination service.
Kaye responded with a lengthy attempt to explain and defend the English
Reformation as the birthplace of Anglicanism, and to press for continued
assent to what he termed the ‘natural’ meaning of the Articles, and
for the exclusive use of the Book of Common Prayer, the twin supports
which had maintained the Church of England for centuries. 14 His charge
of 1846 amounted to a bitter attack on the Tractarians. But in his later
charges he turned to other matters, which is unsurprising in view of the
fact that virtually none of the clergy in the almost 1,300 parishes in his
diocese showed support for Tractarianism during his lifetime. 15 This raises
the question ‘why so few?’ Part of answer may be found in the smaller
12
He published on Tertullian and the ecclesiastical history of the second and third
centuries in 1826, Justin Martyr (Some account of the writings and opinions of
Justin Martyr (London: Rivington, 1829), Clement of Alexandria (Some account of
the writings and opinions of Clement of Alexandria, (London: Rivington, 1835))
and Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea (Some account of the Council of Nicea,
in connexion with the life of Athanasius (London: Rivington, 1853). These works
were highly regarded in their day, and Justin Martyr was still in print in 1917.
13
R. W. Ambler, ‘The Conversion to Roman Catholicism of Bernard Smith of Leadenham,
1842’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology xiv (1979): 57–61.
14
Kaye, Nine Charges, 299.
15
The number of parishes within the diocese fluctuated as various archdeaconries
were added and subtracted as the ecclesiastical reform process got underway. The
number was 1273 in 1833, when the diocese was at its largest. A significant
amount of Kaye’s Lincolnshire correspondence was edited by Rod Ambler, and it is
striking how little of it was concerned with Tractarianism. See R.W. Ambler, (ed.),
Lincolnshire Correspondence of John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, 1827–53, Lincoln
Record Society 94 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006). I reached the same conclusion
when researching my own PhD thesis, Frances M. R. Knight, ‘Bishop, Clergy
and People: John Kaye and the Diocese of Lincoln, 1827–53’, University of Cambridge
PhD, 1990.
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