28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. iv. 



The " Oxford " or " Tractarian Movement" of 1833-45 * 

 made an enormous commotion, and perhaps for a retired 

 locality nowhere more than in our own parish. 



After the death of the old vicar, amongst a succession of 

 clergy the most noted was Dr. Armstrong (presented i846). 2 

 With him came the full tide of the Oxford Movement, and 

 as he was a highly accomplished man, eloquent in the 

 pulpit, of charming society manner in the drawing-room, 

 and with his heart fixed on driving his own views of reform 

 and restoration forward, the holders of differing ecclesias- 

 tical views in the parish were soon very thoroughly by the 

 ears. My father as " squire " and chief resident landowner 

 had always tried (much to his own discomfort at times) to 

 uphold the cause of decency and order. But with the new 

 arrangements came all sorts of trouble from an excess of cere- 

 monial, and peace seemed to have vanished. The attempted 

 setting up of confession caused much trouble, and 

 difference of lay and clerical opinion in the restoration of the 

 Church was a fertile cause of ill-feeling. One special point 

 was the right claimed by the vicar to prevent any of the 

 general congregation entering the church by the chancel 

 door. We had always gone in that way, and it was not 

 convenient to reach the family pew by going round two 

 sides of the church, so my father stuck to his legal rights, 

 and the door was not visibly fastened. But one unlucky 

 day when we, the ladies of the family, arrived as usual and 

 tried to go in, to our consternation it appeared impossible 

 to turn the latch. It was a remarkably pretty handle I 

 suppose an imitation of medieval ironwork but it required 

 more than common woman's strength to make this unlucky 

 invention act in admitting us to the church. However, we 

 were not to be kept out by this ingenious device. Muscularly 

 I was remarkably strong from working in wood and stone, 



1 " The Oxford Movement " or " Catholic Revival " was initiated 

 as a result of statutory changes in the position of the Church of 

 Ireland, which it was feared might ultimately be extended to England. 

 The position and possible danger of the Church were fully discussed 

 in the Tracts for the Times, ninety in number, issued from Oxford 

 during the nine years, 1833-41, and chiefly written by Newman, Keble, 

 Pusey, Williams, and Froude. The object of the movement was to 

 rouse the members of the whole Anglican Community to promote 

 corporate reforms in the Anglican Church as a National Institution 

 changes which the Evangelical Revival of the end of the eighteenth 

 century had failed to introduce. The line adopted in the movement 

 has been described as " a via media between Roman Catholicism and Re- 

 formation doctrines." (ED.). 



2 Afterwards Bishop of Grahamstown, Cape Colony. 



