The first three women appointed bishops in the Church of England are all married to ordained men. Is this a coincidence or could it suggest the development of a new form of clericalism? Members of the Church of England who have longed for their most talented female clergy to be made bishops have been delighted with the nomination of not one but three women to the episcopacy. Libby Lane’s appointment to Stockport in December has been followed by Alison White’s to Hull (another suffragan post) and Rachel Treweek’s to the prestigious see of Gloucester. Treweek’s appointment means there will be a woman among the ermined bishops in the House of Lords. All three women were, in the mid-1990s, among the first to be ordained priests, and they are all married to fellow prie