A Field Guide to the English Clergy

‘Ridiculously enjoyable’ Tom Holland

A Book of the Year for The Times, Mail on Sunday and BBC History Magazine

The ‘Mermaid of Morwenstow’ excommunicated a cat for mousing on a Sunday. When he was late for a service, Bishop Lancelot Fleming commandeered a Navy helicopter. ‘Mad Jack’ swapped his surplice for leopard skin and insisted on being carried around in a coffin. And then there was the man who, like Noah’s evil twin, tried to eat one of each of God’s creatures…

In spite of all this they saw the church as their true calling. These portraits reveal the Anglican church in all its colourful madness.

The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is a young curate in the Church of England who once accidentally appeared on Only Connect. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oxford and a bachelor’s degree in theology from the University of Cambridge. He is (according to his own taxonomy) a Bon Viveur first and foremost, with a soupçon of Roguishness and Prodigality. This is his first book.