Think of a cold week in this or your own country, with snow. On the last day, it thaws. You look out during the late afternoon and there remains a small patch of snow, in a seemingly random location.
In a way, the English Reformation was like this. It began, arguably, in 1534. By the end of the next decade, clerical celibacy was abolished and the Archbishop of Canterbury was among those priests who married , apart from a slight hiccup in the next reign.
Some three hundred or more years after the Act of Supremacy was still passed, there was still a requirement at Oxford University for its Fellows to be celibate. One such was the legendary mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (left) also known, by his reversed, “translated” forenames, as Lewis Carroll.
The irony is that Dodgson had considered entering the priesthood during his youth but may have rejected it because he dreaded the thought of preaching regularly.
The New Murrey and Blue blog 
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