Thomass Hill Lowe from the Deanery, Exeter, to the Earl of Powis,
- MC1/57.
- File
- 1843, Feb. 20.
Part of Powis Castle Estate Records,
He wishes his lordship success in his attempt to preserve the sees of St Asaph and Bangor separate and inviolate. Everything, however, will probably turn on the view taken by the Archbishop, for the Duke of Wellington will certainly support the Archbishop. He cannot understand the low secular views which men who ought to be swayed by far higher principles permit themselves to take with regard to the Church. One of the sorest evils under which they labour is the paucity of bishops and the unmanageable extent and population of most of their dioceses. If there is a jealousy of admitting a larger number of spiritual peers into the House of Lords or if it is feared that the creation of new bishops without seats in the House might endanger the seats of those who are now members of it, it seems to him that the remedy is a very easy one. Let all the present bishops retain their seats in the House and none others. In every archdeaconry at least let there be a suffragan bishop, subject to the control of the present bishop in each respective diocese, and wherever there now is or ought to be a rural dean let there be an archdeacon. Most of the present sees might be raised to the dignity of archbishoprics and the Archbishop of Canterbury might bear the title of Patriarch. He should not be sorry if their bishops, instead of having seats in the House as spiritual peers, had to regulate the Church in matters of doctrine and discipline in an ecclesiastical synod. These are, perhaps, day dreams, and what they have to do is to meet the exigencies of the present hour. His lordship's proposed Bill will drive the cowardly heads of Oxford to petition against the union, a duty which they have hitherto shirked from fear of the Duke. He has not yet had leisure to read Lieut. Eyre's work. He is expecting Herbert Cornwall and his son today. They had the bishop of Tasmania with them yesterday - 'very inferior to your friend of New Zealand'.