to the largely rural diocese of Winchester, where the workload was less onerous.

He renewed his
regular contact with the Queen, who spent much time in the diocese, at Osborne House on the Isle
of
Wight.[2] Archbishop Benson died the following year and was succeeded by the Bishop of
London, Frederick Temple.[n 9] The Queen vetoed a proposed offer of the vacant bishopric of London
to Davidson, on the grounds that his health would not stand it. [2] Temple, unlike his two
predecessors, did not turn to Davidson for advice; [n 10] he had a reputation for isolating himself from all
the bishops and their views. Davidson greatly regretted his sudden exclusion from national Church
affairs.[54]
Within his diocese Davidson was drawn into controversy over a high-church breach of canon
law by Robert Dolling, a fervent Anglo-Catholic priest, who liked to be called "Father Dolling".
Davidson discovered that Dolling had installed a third altar at his newly built church, St Agatha's,
Landport, to be reserved for masses for the dead. The Church of England disowned the Roman
Catholic belief in Purgatory and the efficacy of praying for souls in it.[n 11] Davidson saw Dolling and
tried to reach a compromise that would bring the latter's practices within Anglican rules. Dolling
refused to compromise and resigned, leaving the diocese. [57] His supporters were critical of Davidson;
Mews cites a high-church journalist who concluded that the episode left its mark on Davidson "in
forming his determination not to be the archbishop who drove the high-church party out of the
Church of England".[2] Though traditionally Protestant in his rejection of some aspects of Roman
Catholic doctrine such as Benediction, he thought his evangelical colleagues were too easily upset
by "incense, copes and other adornments", which had no doctrinal significance. [58]

One of Davidson's closest friends from his Oxford days was Craufurd Tait, son of Archibald
Campbell Tait. Like Davidson, Craufurd was preparing for ordination; his father was by
now Archbishop of Canterbury, and the two friends were accepted for ordination as deacons in the
Archbishop's diocese. They were ordained in March 1874, and Davidson was assigned as curate to
the vicar of Dartford in Kent. He was ordained priest the following year.[23] During his two and a half
years at Dartford, Davidson served under two vicars; the first was a moderate high churchman and
the second a moderate evangelical. Bell writes that the young curate learnt a good deal from each,
"both in pastoral work and in piety".[24]
Late in 1876 Craufurd Tait, who was working as his father's resident chaplain and private secretary,
wished to move on and the Archbishop chose Davidson to succeed him. [21] In May 1877 Davidson
began work at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop's home and headquarters, beginning what Bell
describes as "an association with the central life of the Church of England which lasted more than
fifty years".[25] Craufurd Tait died after a brief illness in May 1878;[26] his mother never recovered from
this blow and

The Battle of Sluys was a naval battle fought on 24 June 1340 between England and France, in
the roadstead of the since silted-up port of Sluys. The English fleet of 120–150 ships was led
by Edward III of England and the 230-strong French fleet by Hugues Quiéret, Admiral of France,
and Nicolas Béhuchet, Constable of France. It was one of the opening engagements of the Hundred
Years' War. Edward sailed on 22 June and encountered the French the next day; they had bound
their ships into three lines, forming large floating fighting platforms. The English were able to
manoeuvre against the French and defeat them in detail. Most of the French ships were captured,
and they lost 16,000–20,000 men killed, against 400–600 for the English. The English were unable
to take strategic advantage, barely interrupting French raids on English territories and
shipping. Operationally the battle allowed the English army to land and to then besiege the French
town of Tournai, albeit unsuccessfully. (Full article...)

The outbreak of the First World War was a severe shock to Davidson, who had held that war
between Britain and Germany was inconceivable.[91] But he was clear that it was a just war in which it
was Britain's duty to fight because of "the paramount obligation of fidelity to plighted word and the
duty of defending weaker nations against violence". [35] He was reconciled to allowing clergy to serve
as non-combatants, but not as combatants.[92][93]
When a group of theologians in Germany published a manifesto seeking to justify the actions of the
German government, Davidson was ready to respond. At the government's request he took the lead
in collaborating with a large number of other religious leaders, including some with whom he had
differed in the past, to write a rebuttal of the Germans' contentions. [2] But unlike some of his
colleagues in the Church, Davidson, in Bell's words, "felt the horror of war too keenly to indulge in
anti-German rhetoric".[35] As The Times put it, "He was never betrayed into the wild denunciations
and hysterical approval of war to which some ecclesiastics gave utterance". [6] He donated to a fund
to help Germans and Austro-Hungarians in Britain, where they were classed as enemy aliens.[94]
Throughout the war Davidson criticised the use of what he considered immoral methods of warfare
by the British side.[n 20] Most of his objections were made privately to political leaders, but some were
public, and he was bitterly attacked for them. Mews records "hate mail flood[ing] into Lambeth
Palace".[2] Davidson protested against the false information put out to hide British military reverses,[n
21]
 the use of poison gas, the punitive bombing of Freiburg in April 1917 and the targeting of non-
combatants.[2][35] In 1916 he crossed to France for an eight-day visit to combatant troops at the front. [6]
Davidson commented to a friend in 1928, "If I was describing myself I should say I was a funny old
fellow of quite mediocre, second-rate gifts and a certain amount of common sense – but that I had
tried to do my best; I have tried – and I have tried to stick to my duty; but that is really all there is
about it."[142] Historians have rated him more highly, although in a 2017 study, Michael Hughes
comments that Davidson has "largely slipped from public memory, and perhaps even from that of the
Church",[143] his reputation eclipsed by successors such as William Temple or Michael
Ramsey whose public profiles were considerably higher.[144] Hastings calls him "perhaps the most
influential of churchmen", because he was "a man of remarkable balance of judgment, intellectual
humility, sense of responsibility and capacity for work ... His great sense of public moral
responsibility gave him an influence and a position which were remarkable". [145] The historian Keith
Robbins observes that Davidson "did not attempt to resolve differences of outlook and doctrine at an
intellectual level. The Church of England had always contained many mansions and it was his task
to prevent the sinking of this particular bark of Christ by one faction or another. He was, on the
whole, remarkably successful in a sober, uninspiring way".[146] In a 1966 study of the Church of
England, Roger Lloyd writes:
As the years pass by one has less and less desire to quarrel with the judgement that Davidson was
one of the two or three greatest of all the Archbishops of Canterbury. If towards the end of his years
the firmness of his gra