Robin Ward

@johnmilbank3 The cantors sang the variable parts of the Office from the lectern in the choir. The psalter and canticles were memorised by the canons/religious in the stalls. In 18c France you were allowed a hand psalter for your first month.

Only one copy for the whole choir to see!

@DurhamWASP Some good Discount House brokers at the start.

“A time traveller from 50s Britain would probably die of shock within two hours of arriving in modernised Blairland - and be quite glad to do so. The fact that the restaurants are better just would not make up for the fact that almost everything else is worse.” Peter Hitchens

RT @NicholasOShaug1: The sight of a puttee being wrapped is the most exciting thing I have seen all day. The word sounds Hindi.

@cathconclave @PhilCatholic I think I might have the only copy in Cornwall …

@CanonRobinWard @PhilCatholic Sits in Blackfriars library and published as a book

The ghost of Bérulle haunts us still.

Date: Summer 1904. Location: The Gulf of Saint Malo, France. Event: Armored cruiser Dupuy de Lôme pays a visit to Saint Malo during fleet exercises by the French Navy's Northern Squadron. Current status: Scrapped in 1923, lifespan of 35 years. Photo by Victor Riston.

@ItsTaz1989 I can recall seeing the (male) frontbenchers all with their feet up on the table when I sat in the public gallery in 1979.

People did think it disrespects the House of Commons, except what Rees-Mogg did is nothing new. Here's A. J. Balfour depicted in 1880 by the great Spy, aka, Leslie Ward.

@cathconclave @PhilCatholic Don’t know. It was published as a book.

@CanonRobinWard @PhilCatholic Is it available online?

@cathconclave @PhilCatholic Yes indeed, I’ve read a fair bit of his work. I’m just interested in this critique. Incidentally Bishop Eric Varden’s Oxford DPhil was on Berulle.

@CanonRobinWard @PhilCatholic Founder of the other Oratory- the French Oratory being entirely distinct.

@PhilCatholic Thank you!

@CanonRobinWard Take a look at my comment above to the other poster, broadly I’m thinking of the effect of his spirituality of priesthood non-insignificant of Catholic priestly identity. This text well summarizes the stakes: regensburgforum.com/2020/08/23/fal…

@Simon_Gleaden @WomackPhilip Incidentally this caused a constitutional row when Lord Curzon would only accept an Irish peerage as Viceroy of India so he could return to the Commons. The King wouldn’t countenance it on his return and Asquith wouldn’t give him a UK peerage.

@Simon_Gleaden @WomackPhilip Irish peers not elected as representative peers could sit in the Commons for ‘mainland’ seats. Lord Winterton was Father of the House of Commons, and Lord Kilmorey sat, as Richard Needham.

Could one of my constitutionally-informed learned friends please tell me when hereditary peers stopped being able to stand as an MP? Eg, how did the Duke of Wellington become PM twice?

@policy_uk They weren’t just about 15 year old boys learning how to build Merlin engines.

@CanonRobinWard Interesting!

Meeting Kenneth Baker today to talk secondary education reform. Such wisdom! Lord Baker has led the movement to re-establish Britain’s technical schools (500 were abolished by comprehensive education… we didn’t just lose the Grammar Schools…)

Four people have been on the back of a fiver before Churchill: Britannia, the Duke of Wellington, George Stevenson and Elizabeth Fry. Before that it was a lion and before that the back was blank. This really isn't the major issue people are making it out to be.

RT @2D0XPS: Famous figures being on banknotes only dates from the 1970s; they didn't have the monarch on until the 60s and the backs were b…

@WilliamHDunne @john_ritzema Yes agreeably dim and ineffectual. Just right.

I hope conservatives don’t throw their toys out of the pram now — culling the hereditary peers is a mistake, but there is still real value in an unelected house with members sitting for life. A democratic chamber of those who can’t quite get elected to the Commons would be worse!

@DanielJHannan Plumage is notoriously gendered. I see trouble ahead.

@MinooFramroze Good point. They could be made Highnesses, like HM fixed for the Aga Khan last year.

@CanonRobinWard Oh that’s splendid! What would happen to dukes? Grand dukes? Princes? Kings of Hebridean islands?

I hope the King showers hereditaries leaving the House on their shields with garters, thistles, companionships of honour, orders of merit, knighthoods of the bath / various Victorian saints etc