authority by female patrons. Patronage inevitably operated from a higher towards a lower rank in society. Only a woman of high social status could patronize a clergyman. The importance attached to exalted rank when it came to circumventing restrictions can be demonstrated by comparing any of these aristocrats with Hannah More, who just attained the lower ranks of the gentry. Although she achieved considerable moral authority through her own efforts, the opposition she faced was greater than anything Ladies Huntingdon or Glenorchy had to endure. The Blagdon controversy of 1800–3 was a serious challenge by a Church of England clergyman to More’s attempt to appoint her own schoolmaster within his parish on no authority but her own. It demonstrates the difficulty which a woman of lesser rank faced when she tried to exercise the kind of religious authority that Lady Glenorchy defended with such panache against the Edinburgh Presbytery.

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-52

Chapter

authority by female patrons. Patronage inevitably operated from a higher towards a lower rank in society. Only a woman of high social status could patronize a clergyman. The importance attached to exalted rank when it came to circumventing restrictions can be demonstrated by comparing any of these aristocrats with Hannah More, who just attained the lower ranks of the gentry. Although she achieved considerable moral authority through her own efforts, the opposition she faced was greater than anything Ladies Huntingdon or Glenorchy had to endure. The Blagdon controversy of 1800–3 was a serious challenge by a Church of England clergyman to More’s attempt to appoint her own schoolmaster within his parish on no authority but her own. It demonstrates the difficulty which a woman of lesser rank faced when she tried to exercise the kind of religious authority that Lady Glenorchy defended with such panache against the Edinburgh Presbytery.

Chapter

authority by female patrons. Patronage inevitably operated from a higher towards a lower rank in society. Only a woman of high social status could patronize a clergyman. The importance attached to exalted rank when it came to circumventing restrictions can be demonstrated by comparing any of these aristocrats with Hannah More, who just attained the lower ranks of the gentry. Although she achieved considerable moral authority through her own efforts, the opposition she faced was greater than anything Ladies Huntingdon or Glenorchy had to endure. The Blagdon controversy of 1800–3 was a serious challenge by a Church of England clergyman to More’s attempt to appoint her own schoolmaster within his parish on no authority but her own. It demonstrates the difficulty which a woman of lesser rank faced when she tried to exercise the kind of religious authority that Lady Glenorchy defended with such panache against the Edinburgh Presbytery.

ABSTRACT

Moving from the theoretical to the more concrete, and from Lady Huntingdon in particular to active religious women in general, precedents were also being set in terms of female moral authority and autonomy. Through the activities of such aristocratic figures, women as a whole were increasingly respected as being able to form their own judgements on religious matters, to hold well-thought-out doctrinal positions which affected the way they lived their lives, to be sources of moral influence over others than just their children and servants, and to have demonstrable administrative and organizational skills. They were a long way as yet from being bishops. George Whitefield likened the Countess of Huntingdon to a bishop only in the sense of overseer. It was a practical, administrative and, admittedly, powerful role, but not a sacramental one. The priesthood of all believers was not a doctrine which conferred sacramental functions upon laywomen. But more than ever before women began to assume some of the duties and responsibilities which had traditionally belonged to the clergy, and this was neither a negligible nor a reversible development. If it was rank and wealth which in the immediate term facilitated the real and widespread extension of female religious authority, subsequent generations of Christian women had reason to be thankful that those who possessed these benefits used them as they did.