Page:The Dioceses of England.djvu/12

6 of living in an old country, where things have grown up bit by bit. And I am sure that the gain of having shire and diocese the same quite outweighs any disadvantages which may spring from difference of size. Of course, the rule is only a general one, and need not be pressed inflexibly in every case. We need not press it so far as to ask for a separate Bishop for Rutland or to refuse two Bishops to Lancashire.

Another point is suggested by old civil arrangements. Some cities and boroughs are themselves counties. This precedent might suggest that it might sometimes, from geographical or other reasons, be convenient to let a city or borough be a diocese of itself. Take one case. The bishopric of Bristol is a standing difficulty. Henry VIII. planted the bishopstool at Bristol, and made Dorset the diocese. From this the union of Gloucester and Bristol was a natural revulsion. The cry for a separate bishopric of Bristol is equally natural now. But it is an equally natural cry that the abiding frontier of the diocese of Somerset, already slightly nibbled at, must not be further disturbed by any patched-up bishopric of "Bath and Bristol," or nobody knows what. Bristol in temporal matters belongs neither to Gloucestershire nor to Somerset; it is a free city. Why cannot it be the same in ecclesiastical matters? There is, of course, the obvious objection that a Bishop of Bristol only would have a very small diocese. But there is yet greater objection either to no Bishop of Bristol at all or to a Bishop of Bristol with a diocese patched up out of West-Saxon shires.

Let us now look through the dioceses in order, beginning from the top of the map. As northern England was gradually cut short, the diocese of Durham was cut short, till the palatine bishopric itself and the one shire of Northumberland (in the later sense) alone were left. These two have been lately divided, a division thoroughly according to ancient precedent, diocese and shire coinciding. That the city of Newcastle is not central for the diocese is a pity, but it cannot be helped.

The old diocese of Carlisle was the earldom which William Rufus added to England, and in which Henry I. founded a bishopric. The shires of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire are all later than the bishopric. Cumberland and Westmorland were made by dividing the earldom of Carlisle and adding a piece of Yorkshire to each division. Lancashire