Name/Title
1909/Hughes: Ordination of Francis HughesScope and Content
The writing is close to illegible but this letter to Francis Hughes at the theological college at Ely was from the Bishop of Lincoln, Edward King. King was then almost 80 years of age and would die four months later, on 8 March 1910.
Edward King was a leading light in the Anglo-Catholic movement. For ten years he was the principal of Cuddesdon College (1863–1873), an Anglo-Catholic theological college. He was one of Edward Pusey's closest friends and was a pall-bearer at his funeral in 1882.
A newspaper clipping was kept with this letter, inscribed "May 1977 (Church Times)". Part of this article refers to the "Lincoln Judgement" when Bishop King was arraigned before the Archbishop of Canterbury in the library of Lambeth Palace in February 1890, on charges of ritualistic practices brought by the Church Association under the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874.
This trial was notorious in the history of the Anglo-Catholic movement, and is referred to, very sarcastically, in Dom Anselm Hughes's book "Rivers of the Flood" (p.23) about the Catholic revival in England. Dom Anselm Hughes was Francis's younger brother, Humphrey.
It would appear from the wording of the letter that Francis had asked the Bishop to receive him as a candidate for ordination, no doubt because of his connection to the Anglo-Catholic movement to which the Hughes family was very loyal.
