The historian Matthew Grimley describes the Prayer-book controversy of 1927–28 as "the last great parliamentary battle over Church and state". Davidson – like his Tudor predecessor Thomas Cranmer, according to "The Times" – had "immense and perhaps excessive faith in a new Prayer-book as a means of composing differences and restoring discipline within the Church". He also considered that a modern Prayer-book would enrich Anglican services and make them relevant to 20th-century needs unforeseen when Cranmer and his colleagues wrote the original version in the 16th century. Work had been going on under his supervision since 1906, and in 1927 a version was finally ready. The Church Assembly approved it, and it was put to Parliament for authorisation. The House of Lords agreed it by an unexpectedly large majority of 241 votes. The measure then went before the House of Commons, where it was introduced by William Bridgeman, who made a listless speech that did not impress MPs. Opposing, William Joynson-Hicks spoke vehemently, maintaining that the new Prayer-book opened the door to Romish practices. Davidson privately wrote of Bridgeman's speech, "He absolutely muffed it. It was a poor speech with no knowledge and no fire"; Bell calls Joynson-Hicks's speech "flashy" but "abundantly successful". The Commons rejected the bill by 238 votes to 205. The MP Austen Chamberlain described Davidson as "a tragically pathetic figure as he left ... after the result". "The Times" said: