Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/80

Rh fourth period extends from the third year of the reign of George I. (1716) to the fifteenth year of the reign of Queen Victoria. This was a period of torpid inactivity, during which it was customary for convocation to be summoned and to meet pro forma, and to be continued and prorogued indefinitely. The fifth period may be considered to have commenced in the fifteenth year of the reign of Queen Victoria (1852).

During the first of the five periods above mentioned, it would appear from the records preserved at Lambeth and at York that the metropolitans frequently convened congregations (so called) of their clergy without the authority of a

royal writ, which were constituted precisely as the convocations were constituted, when the metropolitans were commanded to call their clergy together pursuant to a writ from the crown. As soon, however, as King Henry VIII. had obtained from the clergy their acknowledgment of the supremacy of the crown in all ecclesiastical causes, he constrained the spirituality to declare, by what has been termed the Act of Submission on behalf of the clergy, that the convocation “is, always has been, and ought to be summoned by authority of a royal writ”; and this declaration was embodied in a statute of the realm (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which further enacted that the convocation “should thenceforth make no provincial canons, constitutions or ordinances without the royal assent and licence.” The spirituality was thus more closely incorporated than heretofore in the body politic of the realm, seeing that no deliberations on its part can take place unless the crown has previously granted its licence for such deliberations. It had been already provided during this period by 8 Henry VI. c. 1, that the prelates and other clergy, with their servants and attendants, when called to the convocation pursuant to the king’s writ, should enjoy the same liberty and defence in coming, tarrying and returning as the magnates and the commons of the realm enjoy when summoned to the king’s parliament.

The second period, which dates from 1533 to 1664, has been distinguished by four important assemblies of the spirituality of the realm in pursuance of a royal writ—the two first of which occurred in the reign of Edward VI.,

the third in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the fourth in the reign of Charles II. The two earliest of these convocations were summoned to complete the work of the reformation of the Church of England, which had been begun by Henry VIII.; the third was called together to reconstruct that work, which had been marred on the accession of Mary (the consort of Philip II. of Spain), whilst the fourth was summoned to re-establish the Church of England, the framework of which had been demolished during the great rebellion. On all of these occasions the convocations worked hand in hand with the parliament of the realm under a licence and with the assent of the crown. Meanwhile the convocation of 1603 had framed a body of canons for the governance of the clergy. Another convocation requires a passing notice, in which certain canons were drawn up in 1640, but by reason of an irregularity in the proceedings of this convocation (chiefly, on the ground that its sessions were continued for some time after the parliament of the realm had been dissolved), its canons are not held to have any binding obligation on the clergy. The convocations had up to this time maintained their liberty of voting the subsidies of the clergy in the form of “benevolences” separate and apart from the “aids” granted by the laity in parliament, and one of the objections taken to the proceedings of the convocation of 1640 was that it had continued to sit and to vote its subsidies to the crown after the parliament itself had been dissolved. It is not, therefore, surprising on the restoration of the monarchy in 1661 that the spirituality was not anxious to retain the liberty of taxing itself apart from the laity, seeing that its ancient liberty was likely to prove of questionable advantage to it. It voted, however, a benevolence to the crown on the occasion of its first assembling in 1661 after the restoration of King Charles II., and it continued so to do until 1664, when an arrangement was made between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Hyde, under which the spirituality silently waived its long-asserted right of voting its own subsidies to the crown, and submitted itself thenceforth to be assessed to the “aids” directly granted to the

crown by parliament. An act was accordingly passed by the parliament in the following year 1665, entitled An act to grant a Royal Aid unto the King’s Majesty, to which aid the clergy were assessed by the commissioners named in the statute without any objection being raised on their part or behalf, there being a proviso that in so contributing the clergy should be relieved of the liability to pay two subsidies out of four, which had been voted by them in the convocation of a previous year. In consequence of this practical renunciation of their separate status, as regards their liability to taxation, the clergy have assumed and enjoyed in common with the laity the right of voting at the election of members of the House of Commons, in virtue of their ecclesiastical freeholds.

The most important and the last work of the convocation during this second period of its activity was the revision of the Book of Common Prayer which was completed in the latter part of 1661.

The Revolution in 1688 is the most important epoch in the third period of the history of the synodical proceedings of the spirituality, when the convocation of Canterbury, having met in 1689 in pursuance of a royal writ,

obtained a licence under the great seal, to prepare certain alterations in the liturgy and in the canons, and to deliberate on the reformation of the ecclesiastical courts. A feeling, however, of panic seems to have come over the Lower House, which took up a position of violent antagonism to the Upper House. This circumstance led to the prorogation of the convocation and to its subsequent discharge without any practical fruit resulting from the king’s licence. Ten years elapsed during which the convocation was prorogued from time to time without any meeting of its members for business being allowed. The next convocation which was permitted to meet for business, in 1700, was marked by great turbulence and insubordination on the part of the members of the Lower House, who refused to recognize the authority of the archbishop to prorogue their sessions. This controversy was kept up until the discharge of the convocation took place concurrently with the dissolution of the parliament in the autumn of that year. The proceedings of the Lower House in this convocation were disfigured by excesses which were clearly violations of the constitutional order of the convocation. The Lower House refused to take notice of the archbishop’s schedule of prorogation, and adjourned itself by its own authority, and upon the demise of the crown it disputed the fact of its sessions having expired, and as parliament was to continue for a short time, prayed that its sessions might be continued as a part of the parliament under the “praemunientes” clause. The next convocation was summoned in the first year of Queen Anne, when the Lower House, under the leadership of Dean Aldrich, its prolocutor,

challenged the right of the archbishop to prorogue it, and presented a petition to the queen, praying her majesty to call the question into her own presence. The question was thereupon examined by the queen’s council, when the right of the president to prorogue both houses of convocation by a schedule of prorogation was held to be proved, and further, that it could not be altered except by an act of parliament. During the remaining years of the reign of Queen Anne the two Houses of convocation were engaged either in internecine strife, or in censuring sermons or books, as teaching latitudinarian or heretical doctrines; and, when it had been assembled concurrently with parliament on the accession of King George I., a great breach was before long created between the two houses by the Bangorian controversy. Dr Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, having preached a sermon before the king, in the Royal Chapel at St James’s Palace in 1717, against the principles and practice of the nonjurors, which had been printed