Examining the Reasons for the Development of High Church Anglicanism:
An Analysis of the Relationship between Politics and the 19th Century High Church Movement
by Jack Steyer, History
The High Church Anglican movement sought a return to a Pre-Reformation Church which emphasized traditional liturgies with rituals and sacraments. However, as the High Church Anglican movement developed, a large disagreement began to form between early members of the High Church movement and later members. Interestingly, one component of this disagreement was over the relationship between the Anglican Church and the British State. This paper reviews the historiographical interpretations of this disagreement and argues that foreign and domestic politics were the root source of this disagreement. As politics developed in Europe and within the British State, High Church Anglicans began to move away from supporting a robust relationship between Parliament and the Anglican Church. This evolution ultimately manifested into the Oxford Movement. Understanding the unique relationship between an expanding electorate and a reactionary Anglican Church can influence how scholars think about the growth of parliamentary democracy during the Victorian Era.
High Church Anglicanism, Oxford Movement, Parliamentary Politics
During the 17th and 18th century, members of the High Church Anglican movement—as defined by scholar Robert Andrews—were those “who stressed their continuity with the pre-Reformation heritage of English and British Christianity.” However, despite agreeing on this fundamental premise, there were severe disagreements among leaders of the High Church movement over the ideal relationship between a reformed Anglican Church and the British State. This paper will argue that the development of High Church Anglicanism can be defined by disagreements over this relationship. Reviewing the historiographical interpretations of the movement, this paper will contend that the differing opinions among High Church Anglicans on the Church of England’s role in society, as well as its relationship with state apparatuses, developed as reactions to the foreign and domestic politics of the Georgian and Victorian eras. Early High Church Anglicans were more likely to defend a strong relationship between Church and State in reaction to events like the French Revolution—formulating their opinion out of this foundational event. Furthermore, these early High Church members inhabited a political culture that sympathized with the desires of the Anglican Church—only bolstering their political opinions. Later members of the tradition, the Oxford Movement in particular, were reacting to domestic political changes like the death of Lord Liverpool and the Catholic Emancipation Act, thus forming reactionary opinions as an attempt to preserve Anglican legitimacy.
As members of High Church Anglicanism learned about the French Revolution, there were increased calls among members to embrace a strong relationship between the Church and the State. These calls conformed with the original tradition of High Church Anglicans to defend such a relationship. Dr. Peter Nockles notes this defense originated from scripture, Isaiah chapter 49 verse 23, which states “‘And Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers.’” Nockles goes on to explain that the French Revolution only strengthened this view. He argues that, in a reaction to the French Revolution, “High Churchmen sought to refute natural right theories by a rigorous assertion of the patriarchal theory of the origin of government which they derived from scripture.” As such, these proponents were not compromising the core tenets of High Church Anglicanism—still deriving their support from scripture—but it is obvious their concerns did arise from a proposed threat to the Anglican Church. In France, the system had favored the Church and the nobility in the First and Second Estates. This system was extremely similar to the House of Lords in the United Kingdom which—through its veto power—inherently empowered the Anglican Church and the nobility in England.
Original High Church Anglicans also supported a strong relationship between the Anglican Church and the British State since the monarchy had favored the Church of England. Scholar Nigel Aston explains that the Anglican Church found George III as “a form of protection for the Church of England against its confessional rivals.” George III, according to Jeremy Black, took his role as “Supreme Governor of the Church very seriously, far more so than his two predecessors had done.” Black continues that George III took “great care with his appointment of clerics: all senior appointments were in his gift, and bishops paid him homage when appointed.” Alongside this, Nigel Aston notes that George III strongly opposed Catholic Emancipation—“defending the legal status of the Church of England within what became vulgarly known as ‘the Protestant Constitution.’” Such strong defense from the Monarchy only increased the desire to have a close relationship with the British State—with High Church Anglicans seeing George III as the defender of the Church and the manifestation of Isaiah 29:23.
This support from the British State continued after the death of George III as well. Robert Andrews explains in his article “High Church Anglicanism in the Nineteenth Century” that High Churchmen “prospered during the Tory premiership of Lord Liverpool (1812-27).” He continues to explain that “High Churchmen were close to Liverpool; his patronage in favour of the old and new Church societies being evident on numerous occasions.” However, the pivotal moment in the progression of High Church Anglicanism—and the rise of the Oxford Movement—would result from a British State in flux. Andrews notes that, after Liverpool’s administration, the Test and Corporation Acts would be repealed—“admitting Nonconformists to officially share an equal place in civil life”; furthermore, “Roman Catholics were granted the same privilege” in 1829 through the Catholic Emancipation Act—a sign that “Parliament, which for centuries had been a sort of Anglican ‘lay synod,’ was now officially a mixed body in terms of religious confessions.” The British State no longer represented a stalwart institution for High Church Anglicans—as it had under George III and Lord Liverpool—and this pushed a new branch of High Church Anglicans to support separation from the British State.
As the British electorate became more diverse, High Church Anglicans like John Keble and John Newman developed the Oxford Movement. The Oxford Movement differed from the traditional High Church movement by supporting a separation between Church and State. This is not an argument that these High Church Anglicans were radicals, in no way arguing for sudden separation between the two institutions, but rather an argument that some High Church Anglicans came to realize that the Church of England could no longer rely on the express support of the British State or Parliament. The two were still closely interlinked on paper but, as scholar Jeremy Morris notes, “the State increasingly became a secular organ” leaving the “established Church largely short of its legislative defences.” Scholars Stewart Brown and Peter Nockles recount that the Oxford movement perceived a “threat to the established Church […] by British Dissenters, Irish Catholics, and Whig and Radical politicians.” They explain that the Oxford Movement believed these politicians “seemed poised to subjugate or even abolish the established Church and appropriate its property and income.” Dr. George Herring expands on this concept, noting that members of the Oxford Movement like “Newman, and to a greater extent Froude” began to see the linkage between the Church and the State “as an impediment and a danger.” The supporters of this movement were similar to earlier High Church Anglicans in their belief of reuniting with a Pre-Reformation Church, but remarkably different in their ideas about what the relationship between the Church and State should look like—a reaction to the politics of their time.
Nevertheless, the movement’s supporters did have reasonable concerns about such an attack occurring due to the problems that plagued the Anglican Church. English clergyman Sydney Smith once remarked to Prime Minister Gladstone in 1835 that “‘whenever you meet a clergyman of my age you may be quite sure he is a bad clergyman.’” Others, like Charles Dickens, were dissatisfied with the idea that “the Church as an Institution was not active in giving aid to those of the poverty class.” There were serious apprehensions from contemporaries about the Anglican Church, and it would be reasonable to assume that the High Church Anglicans were focused on addressing these issues—especially without the protection of Parliament. Dr. Desmond Bowen, in his book The Idea of the Victorian Church, provides an example of how the Oxford Movement attempted to solve such problems by introducing John Newman’s Tracts for the Times by Members of The University of Oxford. Newman was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement and published a series of tracts that addressed his views on the Church. Newman wrote:
Should the Government and Country so far forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and substance, on what will you [the clergy] rest the claim of respect and attention which you make upon your flocks? […] should these secular advantages cease, on what must Christ’s Ministers depend?
Newman did perceive an attack by a changing British State, but he also believed that change had to come from within the institution. Newman’s concerns—and to an extent those of the Oxford Movement—were highly reactionary. No longer able to rely on the defenses of Parliament, High Church Anglicans were motivated to reform the institution in order to maintain its legitimacy. It is a stark contrast to the earlier High Church Anglicans of the Georgian period, and it was only through the political changes to the British State that High Church Anglicanism evolved into the Oxford Movement.
The development of High Church Anglicanism can be explained by the development of the British State and British Politics. High Church Anglicans originally formulated a belief that the Anglican Church should have a close relationship with the State—deriving this partly out of scripture and partly out of their reaction to the French Revolution; however, as the British State expanded the franchise and the opportunity to hold political office to Nonconformists and Catholics, High Church members began to argue for a movement away from the British State. While the franchise’s expansion to Nonconformists and Catholics was a democratic gain for the legitimacy of Parliament as an institution, for the Anglican Church this expansion was a threat to the relative power they had enjoyed. This led to the development of the Oxford Movement who, while united with their predecessors on ideas about returning to the pre-Reformation Church, disagreed on the question of the relationship between Church and State. These disagreements are interesting as, from a modern viewpoint, the democratization of Parliament (although limited) is one of the great successes of the Victorian Period; nevertheless, High Church Anglicans perceived democratization’s successes as one of the greatest threats of their time.
Bibliography
Andrews, Robert. “High Church Anglicanism in the Nineteenth Century.” In The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume III. Edited by Rowan Strong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Aston, Nigel. “High Church Presence and Persistence in the Reign of George III (1760–1811).” In The Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement. Edited by Stewart Brown, Peter Nockles, and James Pereiro. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Black, Jeremy. George III: America’s Last King. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Bowen, Desmond. The Idea of the Victorian Church: A Study of the Church of England, 1833-1889. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968.
Brown, Stewart, and Peter Nockles. “Introduction.” In The Oxford Movement Europe and the Wider World: 1830–1930. Edited by Stewart Brown and Peter Nockles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Dickinson, Christian. “Neither High-Church, Low-Church, nor No-Church: Religious Dissatisfaction and Dissent in Bleak House.” Dickens Studies Annual 49, no. 2 (2018): 349–77.
Morris, Jeremy. A People’s Church: A History of the Church of England. London: Profile Books, 2022.
Newman, John. Tracts for the Times by Members of The University of Oxford. Quoted in Desmond Bowen, The Idea of the Victorian Church: A Study of the Church of England, 1833-1889. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968.
Nockles, Peter. The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760-1857. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to Dr. James Sunderland and the UGA at Oxford Program for introducing me to this fascinating topic.
Citation Style: Chicago