In the Shadow of Death: A Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury [Paperback]

A compelling biography of the first Scottish Archbishop of Canterbury, whose political accomplishments shaped the Church in the late nineteenth century.


In this, the first biography of Archibald Campbell Tait since his son-in-law, Randall Davidsons in 1891, John Witheridge tells the story of how a Scottish outsider became Queen Victorias favourite Archbishop of Canterbury, and the most powerful since Laud in the seventeenth century. Following his childhood in Edinburgh and education at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford, Witheridge describes how Taits life was shaped by faith, duty and diligence, as well as by harrowing experiences of illness and death.

Tait was never content to be an ecclesiastical dignitary, but was ready to intervene and give a lead in the many conflicts, theological and political, that defined his fourteen years at Lambeth. While not always successful, Taits leadership of the Church during a period of controversy at home and challenge overseas, bravely accomplished against a background of personal tragedy, makes him a landmark figure in the history of the Church of England.GBIn the Shadow of Death presents a sympathetic portrait of Queen Victoria's favourite archbishop, whose life and career were overshadowed by a series of personal tragedies. Witheridge draws on Tait's prolific correspondence and extensive personal diaries to shed new light on his approach to controversies within the Church (and wider Anglican Communion) and his judicious handling of disputes. The strength of this first modern biography of the archbishop, however, lies in its sensitive depiction of a whole family haunted by bereavement.John Witheridge's biography of Dean Stanley of Westminster is now followed by this brilliant study of Archbishop AC Tait. Both his subjects were liberal-leaning Balliol Men, favoured by the Queen and very influential. However, Tait was the greater, a Scot without aristocratic connections who laboured under immensl³.