The Church of England’s consistory courts are not normally at the centre of the culture war. These bodies – there is one in every Anglican diocese – typically adjudicate somewhat arcane and obscure disputes relating to the maintenance of buildings and property. They always appear to me rather like something from an Anthony Trollope novel, with their careful inquiries into the disposal of antique pews or the mismanagement of churchyards.
Recently, however, the court for the diocese of Ely had to make a very politically delicate decision. Jesus College, Cambridge, had applied for permission to remove from their chapel a monument to the 17th-century courtier Tobias Rustat, who is buried there. As well as being a noted benefactor of several Cambridge colleges and the university, Rustat was an investor in the Royal African Company, a slave-trading concern, and towards the end of his life made a good deal of money from the investments.
