The Church in danger: Mrs Humphry Ward's 'The case of Richard Meynell'

The Case of Richard Meynell (1911), a sequel to Robert Elsmere, picks up on several generations of disquiet about the nature and function of the Church of England and its responses to social and intellectual change in the nation. It seeks to combine ‘Broad Church’ aspirations associated with Ward's grandfather Thomas Arnold with new perspectives from Catholic Modernists and other reformers. It is argued that the plot of the novel is designed to provide examples and metaphors of the survival and development of underlying truth despite misunderstanding, practical problems and changes in outward forms of religious thought and expression