n with the Court for a considerable time.

January 27th, 1835 {p.199}

[Page Head: CHURCH REFORM BILL.]

There is a Committee sitting at my office to arrange the Church
Bill--Rosslyn, Wharncliffe, Ellenborough, and Herries. It is
generally believed they mean to bring forward some very extensive
measures. Allen says, 'The honest Whigs cannot oppose it with
honour, nor the Tories support it without infamy,' that all the
honest Whigs would support it, the honest Tories oppose it, the
dishonest Tories would support, and the dishonest Whigs oppose it.
He told me an anecdote at the same time which shows what the
supineness and sense of security of the Church were twenty years
ago. An architect built a chapel on Lord Holland's land, near
Holland House, and wished it to be appropriated to the service of
the Church of England, and served by a curate. The rector objected
and refused his consent. There was no remedy against him, and all
that could be done was to make it a Methodist meeting-house, or a
Roman Catholic chapel, either of which by taking out a licence,
the builder could do. However, he got Lord Holland to speak to the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Sutton), to tell him the difficulty, and
request his interference with the rector to suffer this chapel to
be opened to an Orthodox congregation. After some delay the
Archbishop told Holland that he had better advise his friend to
take out a licence, and make it a Catholic or Dissenting chapel,
as he thought best. The builder could not afford to lose the
capital he had expended, and acted upon the advice of the Primate.
The chapel is a meeting-house to this day. I shall be very glad if
this reform of the Church is well done and gives satisfaction, and
I do not know that any of the present Ministers are pledged
against a measure which improves the discipline without
diminishing the revenues of the Church, but certainly reforms, and
especially ecclesiastical reforms, do come with a bad grace from
them. It is ludicrous to see the 'Standard' writing Church reform
articles; and the other day I looked back at Knatchbull's speech
at the Kentish meeting, a week after the dissolution of the late
Government, in which he expressed an earnest hope that he might
leave this country 'without _any change_ in _Church_ or _State_.'
He has been Anti-everything during his whole life, and now he is
come into office to carry into effect 'safe and necessary
reforms,' which he never could perceiv