 At an early stage in his priesthood Lang decided to lead a celibate life . He had no objection to the institution of marriage , but felt that his own work would be hindered by domesticity . Years after Lang 's death , his sexual orientation was questioned , first by the historian A.L. Rowse in his 1989 autobiography , later by Lang 's ODNB biographer Alan Wilkinson and , finally , by the historian David Starkey who , in his 2001 television programme Reinventing the Royals , asserted that Lang was a repressed homosexual : " [ He ] paid the price for this repression with lifelong insomnia and an extraordinary episode of premature ageing . " Lang had close friendships with colleagues such as Dick Sheppard and Wilfrid Parker , his one @-@ time domestic chaplain to whom he wrote admitting his personal loneliness and of his need for " someone in daily nearness to love " . However , he clearly enjoyed the company of women and confessed in 1928 , after a visit to the Rowntree 's chocolate factory , that the sight of the girls there had " stirred up all the instincts of my youth ... very little subdued by the passage of years " . 
