A devout celibate, Walter Howard Frere, 67, Bishop of Truro, last week groomed himself to enter the British House of Lords when Parliament reconvenes this autumn. He is the first monk to sit in the House of Lords since the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). Habitually this Lord Bishop of Truro dresses shabbily, in an old black cassock, a leathern girdle. He is pale, thin, ascetic. Brother Churchmen consider him a saintly man, unquestionably the greatest liturgiologist in the Anglican Communion.
Strict monasticism is a comparatively new thing in the Church of England,...
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