This book traces the history of the "Church Crisis," a conflict between the Protestant and Anglo-Catholic (Ritualist) parties within the Church of England between 1898 and 1906. During this period, increasing numbers of Britons embraced Anglo-Catholicism and even converted to Roman Catholicism. Consequent fears that Catholicism was undermining the "Protestant" heritage of the established church led to a moral panic.

The Crisis led to a temporary revival of Erastianism as protestant groups sought to stamp out Catholicism within the established church through legislation whilst...