Convocational history in the reign of William III., from the year 1689 to the year 1700, is simply a history of writs and prorogations. During that period no business was ever transacted, the Lower House never met. Tillotson and Tenison, knowing the temper prevalent in the Church, aware of the influence of the nonjuring Clergy, sensible of the wide diffusion of sympathy with them, and alive to the fact of an extensive revival of High-Church principles, were apprehensive of a collision between the two Houses in case they proceeded to business. They therefore thought it prudent to hold in abeyance the right of meeting, until some exigency rendered their coming together indispensable. Indignant murmurs at this state of things freely escaped the lips of many a Dean, Prebendary, Archdeacon, and Rector; and at length found utterance in a publication, which produced a wonderful impression, and led to important results. Few pamphlets have been more famous in their day than the Letter to a Convocation Man, published in the year 1697. It was widely circulated, read by all sorts of people, canvassed in City coffee-houses, discussed in country inns, talked of by parishioners under church porches, and pondered in rectories, vicarages, and quiet homes all over England. It made, says Nicholson, “a considerable noise and pother in the kingdom.”[326] The Letter insisted upon the state of the country—so marked by false and pernicious principles, by irreligious indifference, and by immoral conduct—as a reason why the representatives of the Church should assemble in their legal capacity. The constitutional right of Convocation was strongly urged, the Royal writ needful for it being, as the writer alleged, no more a sign of precariousness in this case, than is a Royal writ in any other. A resemblance was traced between Convocation and Parliament, and curious antiquarian and legal questions were reviewed. The author touched on the mode of summoning Convocation—a subject which requires to be explained, not only on account of the use which he made of it, but on account of a use to which it was put by another advocate on the same side.

English Convocations, since the 25th of Henry VIII.—when an Act was passed depriving Archbishops of the right to call those assemblies at pleasure—came to be convoked exclusively by writs addressed to the Archbishops, who were authorized, under their seals, to summon for business the Clergy of their province. The Archbishop of Canterbury addressed his mandate to the Bishop of London, to be executed by him as his provincial Dean, and the Bishop of each diocese to whom the immediate execution of such a mandate belongs, received directions to make a proper return to his Grace or his Commissary—such return, when made, being entered in the Register of the Archiepiscopal See. But, as early as the reign of Edward I., there was introduced into the writ summoning a Bishop to Parliament a clause—called the præmonentes or præmunientes clause, from its beginning with that word—requiring him to give notice of such writ to the Prior and Chapter, and to the Archdeacon and Clergy, so as to cause the Prior and the Archdeacon, in their own persons, and the Chapter and Clergy by their Procurators, or proxies—one for the Chapter, and two for the Clergy—to be present with him at Westminster, there to attend to public affairs. After the Reformation, Deans were substituted for Priors; and, with that alteration, the writ continued to run in its ancient form.[327] The writ indicated exactly the same kind of representatives to be summoned as did the Archbishop’s mandate; and, upon this ground, the author of the Letter insisted upon the right of the Lower Clergy to assemble for deliberation as being no less inalienable than the right of the House of Commons—the premonition, or warning, to be delivered to the Clergy being, as he says, “an argument of invincible strength to establish the necessity of Convocations meeting as often as Parliaments.”

The author of this famous pamphlet maintained that Convocation had the power of determining its own matters of debate; but in the maintenance of this position, he had to explain away the sense of the words employed in the writ of summons, super præmissis, et aliis quæ sibi clarius exponentur ex parte Domini Regis—words which limit Convocational discussions to topics proposed by Royal authority.[328]

To this anonymous publication, which roused High Churchmen to activity and filled Low Churchmen with alarm, an answer appeared from the pen of Dr. William Wake, already well and favourably known in the world of letters, through his answers to Bossuet, and other writings on the Roman Catholic controversy, as well as his version of the Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers. He contended that ancient Synods were convened by Royal authority, that when they assembled, the Civil Magistrate had a right to prescribe questions for debate, and that they could not dissolve without his license. The King of England, he said, had supreme power over English Convocations, and the Clergy could confer on no subject without his permission. After certain historical deductions, he denied that sitting in Convocation is an original Church right, or that it is the same thing as the Parliamentary privilege, vouchsafed by the præmonentes clause in writs sent to Bishops. According to Wake’s argument, the 25th of Henry VIII. has restored to the Crown its full authority, and placed the control of Convocation entirely in Royal hands; and he ventures to declare the possibility of Church Synods becoming useless and even hurtful; asking, with reference to opinions then violently expressed, “What good can the Prince propose to himself, or any wise man hope for, from any assembly that can be brought together, under the unhappy influence of these and the like prepossessions?”[329]

Passing over other combatants, we must particularly notice one who entered the field on the other side, and was destined to play a distinguished part in the political as well as the ecclesiastical affairs of his country. Francis Atterbury, born just before the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662, and educated first at Westminster and then at Oxford, distinguished himself at the early age of twenty-five, by the extraordinary ability which he exhibited as a controversialist. He then won literary laurels by answering an attack upon the spirit of Martin Luther and the origin of the Reformation; and soon afterwards, when minister of Bridewell, where his eloquence attracted popular attention, some of his sermons involved him in discussions upon points of moral and practical divinity. Scarcely had he been made Preacher of the Rolls, when he plunged into a conflict purely classical. Charles Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, who had been Atterbury’s pupil at Oxford, published an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop, then recently eulogized by Sir William Temple—a publication which led to a controversy singularly renowned in the history of criticism. Richard Bentley exposed the spurious character of these Epistles by an appeal to external evidence, and thereby paved the way for an application of similar criticism to productions of a far different character.[330] In defiance of the exposure which reflected upon the literary reputation of both Temple and Boyle, some of their friends, with chivalrous devotion, came forward on their behalf; Swift, in his Tale of the Tub, and his Battle of the Books, tilting his lance on the side of his patron Temple; and Atterbury—associated with others under Boyle’s name, in an examination of Bentley’s Dissertations—appearing as the champion of his late pupil. Though no match for Bentley in scholarship, Atterbury possessed immense power in respect of rhetorical style, clever sophistry, cutting sarcasm, and personal invective; and these were employed with such effect as for awhile to overwhelm the illustrious scholar, and to silence his charges against the defenders of Phalaris. However, the triumph was short; Bentley resumed his attacks, and demolished the work of his critics, in a book which, for learning, logic, and humour, is perhaps unrivalled in that class of productions. Atterbury must have been sorely vexed by his discomfiture when in 1700 he threw himself into the great ecclesiastical contest of the period, and published his Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Convocation.

Indulging in his fondness for personal attack, he abused the recent volume by Dr. Wake as a shallow and empty performance, deficient in historical learning and destructive of Church liberty. After referring to the ancient practice of holding provincial Synods, he treated Convocations as coming in their room, and as constituting necessary appendages to English Parliaments. He insisted much upon the fact of the Clergy having been summoned by the præmonentes clause in the writs addressed to spiritual Peers, and regretted that by a political blunder the legislative representation of the Church had become separated from the legislative representation of the State. Without, however, attempting to revive obsolete proceedings, he asserted most pertinaciously the indefeasible right of the clerical order to sit in Convocation, and to petition, advise, address, represent, and declare their judgment upon their own affairs, notwithstanding their inability to make, or attempt, any new canons without express Royal authority.

The question of assembling Convocation started from an historical point of view, but it came before the public mind in its constitutional and practical bearings; yet, amidst the multitude of publications on the subject, one seeks in vain for a consistent and satisfying treatment of the subject on either side. Those who believed in Convocation, and who wished to see it vigorously revived, did not dare to express all that they believed, or all that they wished; they were checked by the spirit of the age, and hampered by the circumstances of the Church. At the same time they ignored the great change which had come over political and ecclesiastical affairs through the Revolution, and they also shut their eyes to the fact, that it is impossible to enjoy State patronage and emoluments without some abridgment of ecclesiastical action. Those who wished Convocation should not assemble feared to deny its rights, and shrunk from either proposing its extinction or advocating its reform. They only desired to mesmerize it, till clerical animosities should expire, and the Church should be of one mind—a consummation no nearer now than it was then. The prudence forced upon this class of persons by their political position, asserted itself at the expense of logical consistency; and, as is often the case, practical sagacity made men awkward reasoners.

There might be arguments for abolishing Convocation, or modifying its powers—at any rate for defining them; but, whilst no such arguments were urged, it was impossible to silence gainsayers, who contended that practice ought to be accordant with theory. If Convocations be like Parliaments, things in themselves good and wise, differences of opinion no more furnish reasons against Convocations than against Parliaments. If what Clarendon says be true, “that of all mankind, none form so bad an estimate of human affairs as Churchmen,”[331] that may be an argument for extinguishing Convocational rights, not for continuing to them a nominal instead of a real existence.

Nor was there conclusiveness of historical argument, or any consistency of demand, on the other side. High-Church advocates were then, as always, puzzled how to forge links of union between English Convocations and the early Synods of the Church, especially the assembly at Jerusalem. What resemblance exists between them, except of the most general description?—a resemblance such as pertains to all ecclesiastical meetings whatsoever. The essential conditions of a Convocation of Canterbury are that it must meet by authority from the Crown; that it consist of two Houses, one composed of Bishops, and the other of Presbyters, both purely clerical; that the members of the Lower House must be dignitaries, together with Proctors, elected by the Clergy, and that nothing which they do has binding force without the consent of the Sovereign. What is there in these distinctive features of an English Convocation to connect it with Synods before the era of State Establishments? What precedent for any of the essential parts of the structure can be found in the history of the meeting at Jerusalem? The Apostles and Elders met altogether, and joined in a deliverance upon the question at issue. No other representatives or delegates appeared except those who came from Antioch. The resemblance between the meeting at Jerusalem and meetings in Saxon and Norman times is a pure imagination, beyond such resemblance as belongs to religious conferences in general. Nor can any specific likeness be traced between mixed Anglo-Saxon Councils and purely clerical Convocations. An Anglo-Saxon provincial Synod was in many points very unlike Convocation;[332] and between A.D. 816, when the Synod of Challok occurred, in which Abbots, Presbyters, and Deacons met, and A.D. 1065, I do not find that more than one provincial Synod was held; a national Synod met under Dunstan, A.D. 969. Provincial Synods, previously occasional and rare, did not become regular and frequent until the reign of Edward I.

Convocation, with full power to deliberate, to propose and enact canons, to alter existing formularies, to pronounce authoritatively upon points of doctrine, and to originate schemes of ecclesiastical action, co-ordinate with the functions of Parliament, would have been a reality; but, in the view of many, such power would be inconsistent with the secular relations of the Church, as dependent on the State for much of its pecuniary support, for more of its social prestige, and for all of its political pre-eminence. Convocation, as it was permitted to exist under William III., was really a mere form, and that a very troublesome one. Nor did Atterbury, or any who sided with him, endeavour to bring it into accordance with their theory. The theory was one of ecclesiastical independence; but when they saw some of the difficulties of their position, they only endeavoured to loosen a little the chain which bound up the liberty of Convocational action.[333]

The new Ministry, formed in 1700, stipulated that Convocation should be restored to its sessional rights and privileges.[334] This point being conceded, those of the Clergy whom it particularly gratified, burst into a state of clamorous excitement, broaching new or reviving old theories. Atterbury, as earnest in action as he was eloquent in speech, regarded it as eminently a critical juncture, and felt a strong desire that those members who thought with him should come to town a fortnight beforehand for consultation. He wished them, he said, to take proper methods for preventing or breaking through the snares of enemies.[335] He urged upon his friends, Trelawny, Sprat, and Compton, the execution of the præmunientes clause in the Parliamentary writ, as well as the execution of the Archbishop’s provincial mandate.[336] In this measure the Bishops just named concurred, and used their writs accordingly; so did Hough, Bishop of Lichfield, and Mew, Bishop of Winchester.[337]

Tenison, in his archiepiscopal barge, started from Lambeth Palace on Monday morning. February the 10th, and landed at St. Paul’s Wharf, whence he was escorted by a number of Advocates and Proctors to the west end of the new Cathedral; the Portland stone being then unblackened by London smoke, and the structure, as well as its ornaments, being still in a state of incompleteness. Received by the Dean and Canons, his Grace was conducted to the choir, and placed in the Dean’s Stall, fresh from the touch of the carver’s chisel,—the Suffragan Bishops occupying the other stalls on either side. After the Litany had been chanted in Latin, the Bishop of Chichester preached, and at the close of the sermon the choir sung an anthem. The assembly proceeded to the new Chapter-House, where the Archbishop, being seated on his throne, addressed his brethren, after the writ of summons had been read by the Bishop of London. The election of a Prolocutor for the Lower House followed in order; the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. George Hooper, being preferred to the Dean of Gloucester, Dr. William Jane. High Churchmen, with dismal forebodings of opposition from Low Churchmen, whispered amongst themselves as soon as they had presented their Prolocutor, that perhaps they would be adjourned, without permission to enter on business. This policy Atterbury determined to obstruct; for, said he, if we come to any resolutions, they will certainly be for the honour and interest of the Church, since we have a majority in the Lower House, as remarkable as that of our opponents in the Upper.[338]

Convocation having solemnly assembled, and the usual preliminaries being accomplished, Atterbury was intent on going to work; but his correspondence indicates that he moved too fast to please some of his brethren, and that he had reason to apprehend they meant to reject his leadership. They had not proceeded many steps, when Dr. Ashurst and Dr. Freeman incurred Atterbury’s censure, because after the Archbishop’s form of prorogation had come down, and the Prolocutor had informed the House they were not to regard themselves as being prorogued until he told them they were, these two gentlemen, as the Archdeacon states, were very noisy, insisting upon it that they were actually prorogued, and that it was a dangerous thing for them, under such circumstances, to sit any longer. The Prolocutor immediately arose, and said, as these gentlemen were fidgeting about in their scarlet robes, that if they thought they were incurring any risk, they were at liberty to depart. They immediately rose, with the hope of a respectable following, but as they vanished, they were, if we may depend on an opponent’s report, followed only by a general smile, and the condemnation of their own party.[339]

Another question agitated the House the same day. Complaints were made of episcopal interference with the election of clergymen, and accordingly a resolution to that effect passed the House, supported by a large number, says one authority—by a small number, says another.[340] The same day a committee was appointed to investigate disputed elections—a step which, in the estimation of Low Churchmen encroached upon the episcopal prerogative, for they maintained that the Bishop with his suffragans must be the final judge of all such matters.[341]

Robing themselves on the 28th of February, the members glided along the aisles of the Abbey up the steps of Henry the VII.’s Chapel, when they proceeded to business, without taking any notice of their right reverend superiors, who had also robed themselves that same morning, and sat down within the Jerusalem Chamber. It plainly appeared that the two ecclesiastical conclaves were becoming hostile camps. A message from the Archbishop soon reached the Lower House, asking for an explanation, why they went to prayers before the Bishops came. The question at issue now formally arose, and then began a lengthened contest, as to whether the Lower House had self-contained rights, like those of the Commons—a right of self-adjournment and prorogation, and a right to meet, consult, and resolve, without being dependent from step to step upon the will of Prelates. The High-Church party, so zealous in theory for episcopal order, thus in practice broke with their right reverend fathers. In the controversy was mixed up also an obstinate contention on the part of the Prolocutor about what was meant by the words, in hunc locum in the Archbishop’s schedule; to settle this point were added the words, vulgo vocatum Jerusalem Chamber. For a little while, some semblance of union continued. Each party treated the other with punctilious respect. Atterbury, indeed, at the commencement anticipated, in the matter of the address, a “tough dispute,” and, as he said this, resembled a war-horse snorting on the edge of a battle-field. He pressed the Lower House not to wait for the Lords, but to prepare an address of its own; yet, when an address came down to them, the Lower House heartily joined in it, only proposing a slight alteration, which the Prelates approved. Ripples quickly rose on the surface of debate. According to Atterbury, upon the 8th of March, the Dean of Peterborough, Dr. Freeman, already mentioned, behaved amiss, and threw out words reflecting on the Prolocutor, for which a censure was demanded, and would have followed, had the offender not begged pardon. The confused statement made to this effect, indicates that some of the Clergy resisted the highflown policy of their brethren; two days afterwards, however, we find both Houses amicably taking a journey to the pleasant village of Kensington, where stood His Majesty’s favourite palace. At half-past two on Monday afternoon, March the 10th, the Archbishop and Bishops, in their distinctive attire, and the Prolocutor in his cap and hood, and the rest of the Clergy following, took coach at the west end of the Abbey. They proceeded by Knightsbridge and the side of the Park—the trees beginning to bud with early spring, the people by the way watching the dignitaries as their faces peered through the windows of the lumbering vehicles—until, arriving at the Dutch-looking palace, with its prim gardens, the procession of the Clergy reached the Royal presence—the Bishops going to the right hand of the throne, the Prolocutor and the rest to the left. A loyal address was presented, and a gracious reply returned.

The tug of war, of which there had been omens before that pleasant excursion, began in earnest soon afterwards.

The Lower House asserted its claim to independent action, to adjourn itself when and where it pleased, to originate and transact any business whatsoever and howsoever it pleased; always, it should be distinctly stated, choosing its time of sitting according to the time fixed by his Grace of Canterbury’s schedule. To accomplish what was designed, committees of the whole House were appointed, who claimed a right to sit, in this form at least, upon intermediate days, when many did so assemble under cover of a strict adherence to admitted rules; but others would not, counting it a breach of law in substance, if not in form. A matter of business, originating in the Lower House, without consultation with the Upper, and in known opposition to its wishes, was the examination of a certain heretical book—namely, Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious—the object of which is explained on the title page, “A Treatise showing that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to Reason, nor above it, and that no Christian Doctrine can be called a Mystery.”

It should be stated, that at the same time another book, entitled, Essays on the Balance of Power, in which the author asserted, that men had been promoted in the Church who were remarkable for nothing but their disbelief in the Divinity of Christ—a statement intended to bring certain Bishops into disrepute—attracted the attention of the Upper House; upon which their Lordships caused to be affixed to the Abbey doors a paper calling upon the author, whoever he might be, to make good his assertions or to submit to punishment for so base and public a scandal. This was an extraordinary plan, reminding one—chiefly, however, by contrast as to importance—of Luther’s doctrinal theses affixed to the church gates at Wittenberg; and also recalling—more in the way of resemblance—how Archbishop Arundel’s citation of Lord Cobham was stuck on the entrance to Rochester Cathedral, to be defied by him to whom it was addressed.

When Toland’s book was sent up from the Lower House to the Bishops for judgment, they felt that it was a serious matter to enter upon the business, as by condemning certain published opinions, and approving others, they might be altering the recognized doctrines of the Church. Legal objections had on a similar occasion been alleged against such proceedings, because of the consequences they might involve; now they were urged afresh. The Bishops, therefore, came to the conclusion, in accordance with the advice of eminent lawyers, that they could not censure the books without license from the King, lest they should incur certain penalties.

Upon the eve of a prorogation for Easter, after the dispute about the rights of sitting and adjournment had been carried on with an obstinacy which it would be tiresome to describe, the Archbishop delivered to the members of Convocation a speech, in which he alluded to the existing dispute: “We have many enemies, and they wait for nothing more than to see the union and order of this Church, which is both its beauty and its strength, broken by those who ought to preserve it.” “For the maintaining the episcopal authority is so necessary to the preservation of the Church, that the rest of the Clergy are no less concerned in it than the Bishops themselves.” “I have thought fit, with the rest of my brethren, to prorogue the Convocation for some time. It is a season of devotion, and I pray God it may have a good effect on all our minds.” “We, on our part, are willing to forget all that is past, and to go on with you at our next meeting, as well as at all times, with all tenderness and parental affection, in all such things as shall conduce to the good of this Church.”[342]

In spite of the prorogation until the 8th of May, the Prolocutor and some of the Clergy persevered in their assertion of independence, and sat for some hours the same day on which his Grace prorogued both Houses; then they adjourned to meet the next day. But this policy, being esteemed by some High Churchmen as a stretch of power quite unconstitutional, led to a secession, which considerably weakened the influence of the party.

When all had come back from celebrating the Easter festival, and the Prolocutor appeared before the Upper House with a paper in his hand, the Primate returned to the old charge of irregularity, and told him he could not recognize any of the proceedings carried on since his adjournment. The Prolocutor replied, that he had been commanded by the Lower House to bring up the paper, and did therefore present it, as an Act of the House. After being laid upon their Lordships’ table, the paper was found to contain arguments against the course pursued by them in reference to Toland’s work. The Bishops now proposed that committees from the two Houses should meet, with a view to an amicable arrangement, but the majority of the Lower House refused to nominate any committee for the purpose; a refusal which exceedingly annoyed several members. The majority determined to ride the high horse, and to dig the spur into its flanks; so when the schedule of adjournment next time came down, the Prolocutor refused to notice it at all, and adjourned on his own authority; an act against which Beveridge, Sherlock, and others protested, in a paper which they signed and presented to the Archbishop. What still more annoyed the Upper House, was that the Clergy, under the Prolocutor’s presidency, agreed upon a censure of a book by one of the Prelates. This was The Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, by Bishop Burnet, in which, with learning, moderation, and good temper, he expounded the doctrines of the Church of England according to his idea, treating the Articles as terms of peace and union, intended to receive a considerable latitude of interpretation. Anything but unanimity and decorum of behaviour marked the proceedings of the Lower Assembly at this moment; and a report went abroad that one of the members, in consequence of a speech he delivered, ran the risk of having his gown torn off his back. The report is an exaggeration; it arose out of the conduct of some one who, by rudely twitching the dress of a speaker, put an end to his unpleasant oration. Words uttered within the Abbey walls were reported outside in garbled forms, which led to explanations and counter-explanations, to assertions and denials, which provoked fresh controversy, and it became a difficult thing to determine what exactly the two parties up in arms did and said. Enough, however, was manifest to prove, that many of the ministers of religion, assembled to promote the prosperity of Christ’s Church, were sadly forgetful of the simplest lessons of the Gospel.

Connected with the presentation of the censure upon Burnet’s book to the Upper House, there occurred two or three curious episodes. Adjoining the Jerusalem Chamber is a small apartment called the Organ Chamber; and there, a month before, on the 5th of April, had happened an incident which ruffled the feelings of the very reverend Prolocutor, and the clergymen who accompanied him. They were kept waiting at their Lordships’ door, as they said, an hour and a half, as their opponents said, only so long as was needful to read their paper and debate upon it; the circumstance being attributed by some to the insolence of the Prelates, by others, to a mistake of the doorkeeper. On the 30th of May, when the Prolocutor, with the Deans of Windsor and Christ Church, went up with the paper about Burnet’s book, and were again waiting a while in the same antechamber, the Bishop of Bangor came out, commissioned by their Lordships, to ask the Prolocutor whether the message he had now to bring in, was to set right the irregularity complained of? The Prolocutor, according to the Bishop’s report, said, first “it was something in order to set that irregularity right;” then, correcting himself, he added, “it was concerning that irregularity.” After which the door to the chamber being opened, in walked the Prolocutor and his companions, the Archbishop observing to them, “If you have anything to offer, in order to the setting right the irregularity we have complained of, we are ready to receive it.” Immediately the Prolocutor stated, that he had brought a humble representation touching an Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, that it had no relation to the alleged irregularity; but with regard to that, they were ready to satisfy their Lordships whenever called upon to do so. The paper containing the censure was rejected, and some of the Prelates considered the Prolocutor had employed a subterfuge for its introduction. The Bishop of Bangor, in so many words, complained of prevarication, a charge which fanned the Lower House into a blaze of resentment.

At this time, as on a former occasion, some of the minority in the Lower House protested against the proceedings of the majority, by signing a paper to that effect, to be presented to the Bishops; George Bull, Archdeacon of Llandaff, being amongst those who appended their names. This protest, in its turn, became another element of discord.

Upon the 6th of June, as the Prolocutor and others of the Lower House crowded the little Organ Chamber, whom should they find there, quietly putting on his robes, but the Welsh Bishop, whom they so much disliked. Looking at him, the incensed president of the Lower Clergy asked, according to one version, “Were you pleased to say in the Upper House that I lied to you?” According to a second, “My Lord of Bangor, did you say I lied?” The Bishop answered, in some disorder, “I did not say you lied; but I did say, or might say, that you told me a very great untruth.” Amidst threats and demands of satisfaction, the Prelate was glad to get out of the noise of the crowded anteroom into the serene atmosphere of the more spacious chamber; which, however, as soon as the Prolocutor had been admitted within the door, witnessed a renewal of personal strife. Bishop Humphreys adhering to his statement about what had taken place, and Dean Hooper adhering to his, something still worse immediately followed. The Prolocutor having inquired whether their Lordships had entered upon their Acts any reflections upon him, Tenison rejoined, with all his rock-like firmness, and all his prudent control of temper, “Acts, we have no acts, only minutes.” The Prolocutor’s inquiry proved too much for Burnet, the person attacked in the paper, who now—with characteristic impetuosity, his round face no doubt flushed with scarlet—cried aloud with a sonorous voice, “This is fine, indeed. The Lower House will not allow a committee to inspect their books, and now they demand to see ours.” “I ask nothing,” exclaimed the Prolocutor, “but what I am concerned to know, and what of right I may demand.” “This,” retorted Burnet, “is according to your usual insolence.” “Insolence, my Lord, do you give me that word?” asked the other. “Yes, insolence,” reiterated the Bishop of Salisbury; “you deserve that word, and worse. Think what you will of yourself, I know what you are.” The Archbishop, wondering whereunto all this might grow, civilly interposed, that perhaps the Prolocutor had been misrepresented, which the Prolocutor turned to his own advantage, and, to Burnet’s annoyance, wound up this extraordinary altercation with the remark, that he was “satisfied if in this matter he stood right in their Lordships’ opinion; about what his Lordship of Salisbury pleased to think, he felt not much concerned.” Back went the Dean to Henry the VII.’s Chapel, determined to make the best of the business to the Clergy, who sat down to hear his report; but when he said that the Upper House had expressed their satisfaction, or seemed to be satisfied (for the ipsissima verba in these contentions were continually coming into question), up rose one who had attended him to the Bishops’ chamber, to say, “he must do this justice to declare, that their Lordships did not so much as seem to be satisfied, but had showed their partiality.”[343]

Another heap of fuel was by all this cast upon the already blazing fire, and it was moved that the House should resent the indignity offered to their Prolocutor in the execution of his office, and return him thanks for his conduct.

The House recorded in its minutes the following entry: “Whereas the reverend the Prolocutor hath been hardly treated in the Upper House, and particularly this 6th day of June, 1701, was taxed by the Bishop of Salisbury as behaving himself with his usual insolence, saying further, he deserved that and worse words, we cannot but resent this great indignity offered to our Prolocutor and this House; and, therefore, take this opportunity to return our most humble thanks for his conduct in the faithful and recent discharge of his office upon all occasions.”

The Upper House, on the 13th of June, determined that the Lower had no power judicially to censure any book; that it ought not to have entered upon the examination of one by a Bishop, without acquainting the Bishops with it; that the censure on the Bishop of Sarum’s work was in general terms, without any citation of passages; that the Bishop had done great service by his History of the Reformation, and other writings; and that, though private persons might expound the Articles, it was not proper for Convocation to enter upon such a subject. They also resolved, that the Bishop of Bangor had made a true and just report of what had taken place between himself and the Prolocutor; that the paper read by the latter did not relate to the irregularity complained of; and that his answer was such as ought not to have been given to his Grace, or to any member of the Upper House.

Convocation was prorogued to the 7th of August, then to the 18th of September, and was at length dissolved with the Parliament.

All the Prelates, with three exceptions, concurred in these proceedings. The exceptions were Compton, Bishop of London; Trelawny, Bishop of Exeter; and Sprat, who, with the Deanery of Westminster, held the Bishopric of Rochester.

Compton, after his extreme liberalism and low churchmanship at the time of the Revolution, had, by the end of the century—soured, perhaps, by being twice passed over in appointments to the primacy—become a decided Tory; and now he threw his influence into the High-Church scale, without, however, making himself conspicuous in the Convocation controversy. Trelawny, one of the seven Bishops, had been immensely popular in his native county at the time of the great trial, and had formed the burden of a Cornish ballad—

He retained a secret attachment to James II. after the Revolution. That monarch had, in the midst of his troubles, promised to translate him from Bristol to Exeter; but the turn of events in favour of William, so it is insinuated, drew the Bishop into a betrayal of his old master; at any rate, in some way, from William he obtained his improved preferment; but afterwards he showed himself anxious to deny that the Bishops had invited the Prince over, though, as he said, “we found ourselves obliged to accept of the deliverance.”[344] Trelawny never showed any sympathy with the party led by Tillotson, Burnet, and Tenison; and, in the Correspondence of Atterbury, he appears as the chief of those to whom, as diocesan and friend, the lively and interesting letters of the Archdeacon of Totness are addressed. The Archdeacon constantly kept the Bishop informed of what was going on in the Jerusalem Chamber and in Henry the VII.’s Chapel; and it is plain, from the way in which he wrote, how much influence he had acquired over his patron’s mind. The intimate, cordial, and approving friend of Atterbury could not but be opposed to the proceedings of Tenison and Burnet. Sprat was not a man of much principle; he had joined with Dryden and Waller in poetic praise of Oliver Cromwell, he had sat on James’ High Commission, he had read the Declaration of Indulgence in servile submissiveness, but with faltering lips; he had voted for the Regency, and then taken the new oaths, and assisted at the Coronation; and though he had cleared himself from the charge of treason, there is reason to believe that he was Jacobite at heart. He hated Nonconformists, and went in for High Church measures; and as no love was lost between the Bishops of Rochester and Salisbury, the latter said of the former, he had “been deeply engaged in the former reigns, and he stuck firm to the party to which, by reason of the liberties of his life, he brought no sort of honour.”[345]

In the spring of 1701, when the great ecclesiastical tournament was going on within the Abbey walls, a new ecclesiastical knight entered the lists outside, in the field of literature. He not only broke a lance, but engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with the famous antagonist who had distinguished himself equally in book-writing and in debate; White Kennet came forward to answer Francis Atterbury. White Kennet—a curious-looking person, whose forehead, to the day of his death, bore witness to an accident which happened in his youth, for he wore a large patch of black velvet over a ghastly scar—was a man of great archeological research, an eminent Saxon scholar, and a friend of Mr. Tanner and of Dr. Hicks. He had published, in 1695, his well known Parochial Antiquities, and now he sent forth his Ecclesiastical Synods and Parliamentary Convocations historically stated and vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Mr. Atterbury. The title intimates that the object was not to test the Convocation question by applying to it texts of Scripture, or the opinions of the Fathers, or principles of reason, or the results of experience; but to examine it closely in its connection with English history and English law. After the fashion of the day, especially as it appears in the polemical department, whilst using occasionally courteous expressions, he deals very unpleasant blows, depreciating his opponent’s learning, exposing his mistakes, pointing out where he had confounded facts and fallen into sophistry, not omitting to throw the shield of his erudition over Dr. Wake, who had been roughly handled by his excited adversaries. Kennet’s main positions were—that Parliamentary Convocations are not in essence and nature the same things as ecclesiastical synods; that not spiritual affairs, but the taxing of the Clergy, gave the first occasion of their being called together in connection with Parliament—their first appearance in that association being in the year 1282, in the eleventh year of Edward I., the first proctors of the rural priesthood being soon brought into parliamentary attendance. Repeatedly he asserts that Parliamentary Convocations, although ecclesiastical in their constituent parts, are not ecclesiastical in their objects and purposes, and he repeatedly charges Atterbury with confusing civil councils with sacred synods.[346]

It was a pet idea with Atterbury, that Bishops should avail themselves of the præmunientes clause. Kennet undertook to show that he was mistaken as to the time of its origin; that he incorrectly maintained the constancy of its practical application; that he was deceived in his notice of its nature and effect, and that the modern had not, any more than the ancient Clergy, reason to be fond of it. The provincial summons to Convocation, issued by an Archbishop, he maintained to be a sufficient authority without diocesan writs. “From the three or four first years of Queen Elizabeth,” he says, “when the Protestant Clergy might be trusted for obedient subjects, there is not one proof that ever any Bishop made a return of the præmunientes to the Crown, or that ever the Crown challenged such a return from any Bishop.”[347]

Of the erudition and ingenuity shown in Kennet’s book there can be no doubt: it clears up some interesting archeological points in English history; but I am at a loss to understand what bearing his arguments, as far as they go—for it must be remembered he gives only the first part of the work—are meant to have on the practical determination of the controversy. If, as he represented, the existing Convocation was but the relic of an extinguished prerogative of self-taxation, once possessed by the Clergy, then it remained only the shadow of a name, and stood amongst the meaningless things which it would be a good clearance to sweep away. If he took such a view, he does not, as far as I can find, express it; rather he assumes throughout, that Convocations by Royal authority, under archiepiscopal control, without the power of making laws or discussing theological or ecclesiastical questions, are quite wise and proper. How they can be so when reduced to such a nullity, it is difficult to conceive. Kennet’s theory, to any one free from the prejudices and heartburnings of the dispute, is unsatisfactory to the last degree.