I AM fearful of tiring the reader with the minute details of the quarrel which took place between the two Houses in the Convocations of 1700 and following years; yet it has been my object, as it shall be in what has to come, to confine my account of it to those points which involved some question of right or privilege between them, or between both and the Crown. In continuing the history, I will only remark that such a dissension scarcely can occur again. It arose from a new Upper House being grafted by a new King on an old clergy; whereas, in a settled state of things, there is a regular and close connection between the Bishops and the Lower House, the great majority of the members of the latter being appointed either by the Crown or the episcopal bench. I say it scarcely can recur; because it is not to be supposed that the great body of the clergy will ever again find themselves called upon to shift their allegiance to new Bishops at the command of a foreigner scarcely seated on the throne.
1.
Comparing the two Houses with each other, the dignified and temperate conduct of the Upper House forces itself upon the notice of the reader. However, it should be remembered that nothing is so easy as composure, good humour, and good sense, when we have matters in the main our own way. “Let those laugh who win” is a familiar proverb. The Bishops were at this time on the winning side; they had the King with them, and their political principles had gained the victory. Besides, a sort of constitutional tranquillity and clearness of head are often the attendants on the cold, unenthusiastical temper which had, at that era, triumphed in Church and State, as may be illustrated in the case of some well-known writers of that and a more recent date. At the same time, there were members of the Upper House as free from the reproach of placidity and insensibility as any of the Lower. On one occasion, Burnet, whose writings had been attacked by the Lower House, was provoked to interpose, in answer to a question from the Prolocutor to the Archbishop, on some immaterial point of dissension. “This is fine indeed,” he said, “the Lower House will not allow a committee to inspect their books, and now they demand to see ours!” and on the Prolocutor replying that he asked nothing but what he was concerned to know, and what of right he might demand, Burnet returned, “This is according to your usual insolence.” “Insolence, my lord!” said the Prolocutor, “do you give me that word?” “Yes, insolence!” replied the Bishop; “you deserve that word and worse. Think what you will of yourself, I know what you are.” This Prolocutor was Hooper, soon afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, whom Burnet repays in his History, for reporting the above conversation, with a line of description in aggravation of what he then said to his face; saying, that he was “a man of learning and good conduct hitherto,” but “reserved, crafty, and ambitious.”
The Convocation of which I have hitherto spoken came to an end by the dissolution of Parliament. A fresh one, summoned in the beginning of 1702, was first interrupted by the death of the Prolocutor of the Lower House, and then dissolved by the King’s death, in spite of Lord Rochester’s attempt to give it the same continuance of existence as the Parliament enjoyed, as if it were a constituent part of the civil assembly.
Little need be said of the proceedings of the Convocation for the following nine years. Their dissensions continued unabated, and the situation of the Church and kingdom was such as to supply abundant matter for jealousy and factiousness to act upon. In the opening of the new reign, the Bishops offered, byway of accommodation, to allow the Lower House, during the intervals of Sessions, to appoint committees for preparing matters; and, further, when business was brought before them, to give them sufficient time, before their prorogation, for debating upon it. The Lower House would not accept these terms, and wished the controversy referred to the Queen’s arbitration; which the Bishops declined, lest they should compromise that right of supremacy over presbyters, inherent in the episcopate. The Lower House then addressed themselves to the Commons, but could only obtain from them a general promise of standing by the just rights of the clergy. Then they addressed the Queen, who referred them to her ministers, and the premier being with them, and the judges (as it was supposed) against them, nothing was done. Lastly, they passed a declaration that episcopacy was of divine and apostolical right; but the Bishops, apprehensive of incurring a præmunire by what would have seemed the enactment of a canon, declined to assent to it.
The sessions of 1705-6 were scarcely begun when a protest was presented to the Bishops against the majority in the Lower House by forty-nine of its members. In this document the following innovations are specified: (1) Their Prolocutor’s proroguing the House with the consent and authority of the House itself, not by authority of the Archbishop’s schedule (a practice begun in the last Convocation of King William), and the consequent introduction of intermediate Sessions; (2) their claim of a power of putting the Prolocutor into the chair before he was confirmed by the Upper House, and so beginning debates without formal leave from it; (3) their giving leave of absence to members, and of voting by proxy; (4) their electing an actuary, in prejudice of the Archbishop’s right, whose officers, the registrar of the whole Convocation, had constantly received fees from the Lower House, in which he acted by deputy; and, (5) their insisting on drawing up an address to the Queen, at the opening of the then Convocation, instead of accepting or amending that sent down to them from the Bishops. It is observable that among these forty-nine protesters, only ten were proctors of the clergy; whereas, in the counter-declaration, subscribed by the majority of the Lower House soon afterwards, there are twenty-nine such, out of seventy-five signatures.