1.  He was nevertheless left with lifelong after-effects.

Some of the shot remained in his body and caused

recurring abdominal illness;[10] damage to the hip caused frequent lumbago and a hernia obliged him to
wear a truss.[2] Despite this, he remained active throughout his life. In 1926 Winston Churchill recorded
his surprise that Davidson, who was by then 78, continued to play squash frequently.[11]
2. ^ An Oxford MA degree was conferred on Davidson in 1875.[18]
3. ^ F. E. Smith (Lord Birkenhead) wrote in 1924, "The smiles of Archbishops are very pleasant to young
curates. The secretary soon became familiar with every fold of that mantle which he now so decently
becomes".[31]
4. ^ The biographer Sidney Dark suggests that Davidson's influence may have been at least as important
as Gladstone's in the choice of Benson.[34] Later biographers such as Bell and Mews make no such
suggestion.[2][35]
5. ^ Davidson's strongly held view – expressed with the utmost tact – was that the lower classes made
mock of the Queen for her accounts of her holidays at Balmoral, and particularly for her relationship
with her ghillie, John Brown, about which, he thought, the less said the better.[38]
6. ^ The charges against the Bishop were that he had contravened the prescriptions of the Book of
Common Prayerby what low-church critics felt were unacceptably high-church practices, including
celebrating Holy Communion facing the altar rather than facing the congregat
In 1895 Davidson accepted the offer of translation 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
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]