The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 89: ECCLESIASTICAL NULLUM TEMPUS BILL.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ECCLESIASTICAL NULLUM TEMPUS BILL.

Another debate in which the clergy were concerned arose from a motion made by Mr. Henry Seymour, for leave to bring in a bill for securing estates against dormant claims of the church. It was argued that as the nullum tempus of the crown had been conceded in favour of the people, no reason existed why some limitation in this respect should not be set to ecclesiastical power. On the other hand it was contended that the power of reviving claims was necessary to protect the church from encroachments; and that while in the case of the crown it was an instrument in the hands of the strong to oppress the weak, in that of the church, it was a defence of the weak against the strong. The motion was rejected by 141 to 117.