On Sunday 5th February, Dr Perse’s Sermon was preached by the Rt Revd Graham James, Bishop of Norwich. Dr Stephen Perse (1548-1615) was a Fellow of Caius from 1571 until his death, a physician and 'also a financier and a man of the widest charity in College and town' (Brooke, A History of Gonville & Caius College p. 79). He left 13s. 4d. per annum in his will to pay a Preacher to preach a Sermon before the Perse Feast: Brooke notes that 'the sermon, long disused, has been revived since 1973, though it has proved too difficult to hold it just before the dinner' (p.100 n.85).

The 2012 Perse Sermon takes as its starting point the 30th Anniversary of the Falklands War this year, and ideas evoked by the film The Iron Lady; to reflect on the way in which the conflict and its aftermath shaped the reputation not just of Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister but also Robert Runcie as Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Graham served as Chaplain to Archbishop Robert Runcie from 1987-1993, and so has privileged insight into the man who challenged what some saw as Thatcher’s triumphalism in the conflict. The full text of the sermon can be read here.