Cosmo Lang

Archbishop in War and Crisis

Robert Beaken

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781780763552
• eBook ISBN: 9780857731289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies
• Index: History

The period 1928-1942 saw some of the greatest political and social upheavals in modern British history. Lang, as Archbishop of Canterbury, led the Church of England through this tumultuous period and was a pivotal influence in political and religious decision-making. In this book, Robert Beaken provides a new perspective on Lang, including his considerable relationship with the royal family. Beaken also shows how Lang proved to be a sensitive leader during wartime, opposing any demonisation of the enemy and showing compassion to conscientious objectors. Despite his central role at a time of flux, there has been little written on Lang since the original biography published in 1949, and history has not been kind to this intellectually gifted but emotionally complex man. Although Lang has often been seen as a fairly unsuccessful archbishop who was resistant to change, Beaken shows that he was, in fact, an effective leader of the Anglican community at a time when the Church of England was internally divided over issues surrounding the Revised Prayer Book and its position in an ever-changing world. Lang's reputation is therefore ripe for reassessment.
Drawing on previously unseen material and first-hand interviews, Beaken tells the story of a fascinating and complex man, who was, he argues, Britain's first 'modern' Archbishop of Canterbury.

Robert Beaken is parish priest of St Mary the Virgin, Great Bardfield and St Katharine, Little Bardfield in Essex. He holds a PhD from King’s College London.

‘A Bishop of Decision’, ‘Spy’ cartoon of Lang from Vanity Fair, 19 April 1906

Cosmo Lang

Archbishop in War and Crisis

Robert Beaken

Foreword by Rowan Williams

Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

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Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

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Copyright © 2012 Robert Beaken

The right of Robert Beaken to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 355 2

eISBN: 978 0 85773 128 9

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset by JCS Publishing Services Ltd jcs-publishing.co.uk

To FDJB, BMB and ACDB

Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword by Rowan Williams

Acknowledgements

Note on Conventions

1. Introduction

2. From Fyvie to Lambeth: The Making of an Archbishop

3. The Archbishopric of Canterbury Between the Wars

4. Lang and the Monarchy

5. Lang and the Abdication Crisis

6. Lang and the Revised Prayer Book, 1928–1942

7. The Second World War

8. Lang’s Last Days

Appendix 1: ‘Cosmo Gordon Lange’: Spoof Who’s Who Entry

Appendix 2: ‘Past and Present’: Lang’s Abdication Broadcast, 10 December 1936

Glossary

Short Biographies

Notes

Bibliography and Broadcast Sources

Illustrations

Frontispiece: ‘A Bishop of Decision’ (‘Spy’ cartoon of Cosmo Gordon Lang from Vanity Fair, 19 April 1906)

1. The arms of Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury 1928–42 (Drawn by David Hopkinson)

2. The Rev. Dr John Marshall Lang, father of Cosmo Gordon Lang (Alexander Taylor)

3. The Manse, Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, where Lang was born in 1864 (Alexander Taylor)

4. 5 Woodlands Terrace, Glasgow, where Lang grew up (Sharon Hamilton)

5. Tav-an-Taggart, at Tay-in-Loan, Argyll, the house built for Lang by John Morton Macdonald (The author)

6. The exterior of Ballure, Tay-in-Loan (The author)

7. The ‘Cell’, Lang’s oratory at Ballure (The author)

8. Norah Dawnay, to whom Lang twice unsuccessfully proposed marriage, with her father Hugh Dawnay, eighth Viscount Downe (Viscountess Downe)

9. Ann Todd, the actress with whom Lang said he fell in love in 1933

10. Lang with King George V and Queen Mary during the royal tour of the north of England, 1912 (Lambeth Palace Library)

11. Lang in procession at the creation of the Province of Wales, 1920 (John Green-Wilkinson)

12. Lang presiding at the conclusion of the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of York Minster

13. The bishops discussing the Revised Prayer Book at Lambeth Palace

14. Watercolour of Lang by Angus Malcolm, shortly after his appointment to Canterbury, 1928 (David Malcolm)

15. Lang in January 1931 at Lovell Hill, Windsor Forest, recuperating from illness with Lumley Green-Wilkinson, his ‘Comptroller’ (John Green-Wilkinson)

16. A fairly typical photograph of Lang when Archbishop of Canterbury (The author)

17. Lang’s confidential letter to Stanley Baldwin about the abdication of King Edward VIII, 25 November 1936 (Cambridge University Library)

18. Lang with his chaplains at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, 12 May 1937 (John Green-Wilkinson)

19. Wartime pastoral care: a letter from Lang to Mrs Marjorie Holland, whose husband was a prisoner-of-war of the Germans, 3 July 1940 (Celia Root)

20. The Library of Lambeth Palace showing bomb damage during the Blitz, 1940 (Lambeth Palace Library)

21. Lang photographed after preaching for the troops at Addington Church, 1942 (The Right Rev. John Cavell)

22. The burial place of Lang’s ashes, Canterbury Cathedral (The author)

Foreword

History and biography have not dealt kindly with Archbishop Lang. His predecessor was regarded with affection as a shrewd, serene, patriarchal figure; his successor was a charismatic national leader, a major public intellectual and a theological and devotional writer of unusual quality. Lang’s public utterances could be badly judged, and he was mercilessly abused by sections of the media. His own complex personality both fascinated and alienated contemporaries, and his first biographer (who had not known him personally) concentrated on this in ways that were none too helpful. Most people who remember his name at all remember the unfortunate broadcast at the time of Edward VIII’s abdication – or perhaps the anecdote about Orpen’s portrait of him (‘proud, pompous and prelatical’).

Robert Beaken has undertaken an immense labour of research in the copious primary materials now available, and has produced a completely fresh picture of Lang. For the first time, we are given a glimpse of his warm friendships with women as well as men; we learn to see him as an insightful and sympathetic counsellor to the English Establishment, not just a moralising observer; and we meet a man who had a far more creative approach to both the social and the religious challenges of his era than we should ever have guessed from earlier treatments. This is a three-dimensional figure; certainly a man of his age and class, with the limitations that implies, but also a thoughtful and courageous leader of his Church. Much in regard of the health and vigour of the Church of England that might have been ascribed to other influences turns out to have owed a great deal to his oversight. Lang helped the Church rise to the challenge of the Second World War, but he was already thinking forward to the tests of a post-war world.

Dr Beaken organises his material with clarity and vividness. This is a study that will open up some very important new perspectives on the twentieth-century Church of England, and should appeal to a much wider readership as well. Lang stood near the centres of political power at a time of unprecedented change and intense crisis. His contribution to state as well as Church was substantial. This excellent book spells out what he gave to both Church and state and helps us towards a far more rounded appreciation of an unusual, gifted, sometimes tortured, always dedicated Christian pastor.

+Rowan Cantuar:

Lambeth Palace

London SE1

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for graciously giving me permission to reproduce material from the Royal Archives. I am also grateful to The Queen for allowing me access in 2004 to the then-restricted royal correspondence in the Baldwin Papers.

I am especially grateful to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who received me in audience and took a great interest in my work on...

Table of contents

• Author Biography
• Contents