appointment indicated clearly enough that in Wiseman's opinion
there was too little of the Italian spirit in the English
community. The uneasiness of the Old Catholics was becoming
intense, when they were reassured by Wiseman's appointing as his
co-adjutor and successor his intimate friend, Dr. Errington, who
was created on the occasion Archbishop of Trebizond in partibus
infidelium. Not only was Dr. Errington an Old Catholic of the
most rigid type, he was a man of extreme energy, whose influence
was certain to be great; and, in any case, Wiseman was growing
old, so that before very long it seemed inevitable that the
policy of the diocese would be in proper hands. Such was the
position of affairs when, two years after Errington's
appointment, Manning became head of the Oblates of St. Charles
and Provost of the Chapter of Westminster.

The Archbishop of Trebizond had been for some time growing more
and more suspicious of Manning's influence, and this sudden
elevation appeared to justify his worst fears. But his alarm was
turned to fury when he learned that St. Edmund's College, from
which he had just succeeded in removing the obnoxious W. G. Ward,
was to be placed under the control of the Oblates of St. Charles.
The Oblates did not attempt to conceal the fact that one of their
principal aims was to introduce the customs of a Roman Seminary
into England. A grim perspective of espionage and tale-bearing,
foreign habits, and Italian devotions opened out before the
dismayed eyes of the Old Catholics; they determined to resist to
the utmost; and it was upon the question of the control of St.
Edmund's that the first battle in the long campaign between
Errington and Manning was fought.