ABSTRACT
The controversy in the courts, which in early 1862 supplanted the literary controversy as the focus of attention, had its origin a year earlier in the troubled conscience of Bishop W. K. Hamilton of Salisbury. Hamilton was the only tractarian on the bench of bishops. Hamilton refused financial assistance from other bishops, but a guarantee fund was quickly organized by his diocesan clergy. Hamilton found an occasion to explain himself publicly when he delivered his Charge in August 1861. Civil law dealt with maritime cases in the Admiralty Court and with ecclesiastical and probate cases in the ecclesiastical courts. The court in a criminal proceeding was required to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt, and was bound by the Gorham judgment to confine itself to the meaning of the Prayer-Book and formularies.
