reign, and also in Edward III.'s, with a proviso in the last case that the king must give his assent.†

In the reign of Richard II., we first find bishops termed 'lords spiritual,' which gave Sir Edward Coke occasion to say, 'that they have not been called lords spiritual so lately as some have imagined.' ‡

Bishops are declared to be 'barons of the realm' in the Constitutions of Clarendon, passed in the first year of Henry IV.'s reign, and are styled 'peers of the land' in an act passed in the twenty-fifth year of Edward III.

You do not need to be informed of the character of the lords spiritual' in these and subsequent reigns. It is enough to say that they were prelates of the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages. Many of them never saw their dioceses; many of them never put foot on English ground. Those that resided in this country were hangers-on of the Court, and spongers on the people's property. When poor Haxley, in Richard II.'s reign, dared to make a motion in Parliament, complaining of the number of bishops and ladies that resided at the Court, he was adjudged to suffer death as a traitor. I have no doubt that Piers Ploughman would have met with a somewhat similar fate had he been known. His complaint regarding 'so manye prelates that hoppe aboute in Engelond' § was enough to call down every civil and ecclesiastical censure upon his head. The less said about the morality of the 'lords spiritual' at this time the better. There was scarcely one,-I suppose not one,-who did not keep his mistresses, and set every moral and spiritual law at open defiance. Some are even known to have derived a part of their maintenance from fines paid by the clergy for allowance to live in adultery. Yet through this race the prelates of the English Church are proud to boast their descent!

The next most important alteration in the law relating to the bishops occurs in the reign of Henry VIII. In the twenty-fifth year of this king's sovereignty an act was passed, appointing the manner in which archbishops and bishops are to be elected. By this act it is provided that, whenever any archbishopric or bishopric shall be void, the king may grant to the dean and chapter a license to proceed to an election with a letter missive, containing the name of the person whom they shall elect and choose; and the same act provides that, if within twenty-one days the dean and chapter do not obey, they shall be liable to punishment of the law of premunire, namely, fine, outlawry, and confiscation of goods, lands, and tenements. The most expressive comment

† 25 Edward III. c. 6.

*9 Edward II. c. 14. The venerable old commentator evidently refers here to Puritan opinions. He afterwards lived to take a celebrated part in the Long Parliament; and we are told, wept strongly at the violent and unconstitutional course things were taking. § Vision of Piers Ploughman, 10585 and 10699.

upon this extraordinary act, says a diligent collector of our Church laws,* is supplied from a law passed in the first year of Edward VI.'s reign, the preamble of which runs as follows:-'Forasmuch as the elections of archbishops and bishops by the deans and chapters be as well to the long delay as to the great costs and charges of such persons as the king's majesty giveth any archbishoprick or bishoprick unto; and whereas the said elections be in very deed no election, but only by virtue of a writ of congé d'élire, have colours, shadows, or pretences of elections; be it enacted, &c.' This act dispensed with the elections and congé d'elire both, and gave the sole power of appointing to ecclesiastical offices to the king.

By Henry VIII. five new bishoprics were added to those already in existence; viz., Westminster, Gloucester, Bristol, Peterborough, and Oxford. None of these bishoprics had baronies.

Mary, the female Pope, included bishops in her great system of ecclesiastical legislation. She repealed the law of Edward, and restored Westminster to its ancient dignity of an abbey.

Elizabeth, as is known to the most popular reader, had an especial love for meddling in the affairs of the Church-meddling often to sad purpose. It was she who revived Henry VIII.'s law of elections and congé d'elire; it was she who suspended the Bishop of London for marrying a widow; and she who sent the following celebrated note to Bishop Cox on his presuming to object to her taking part of his episcopal estates:

'Proud Prelate,

'You know what you were before I made you what you are: if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G- I will unfrock you.

'ELIZABETH.'

But the bishops of this reign, with a few honourable exceptions, amply deserved the severity and the scorn and contempt with which Elizabeth treated them. In the plunder that was going forward,' says Mr. Hallam, they took good care of themselves. Charges against them of simony, corruption, covetousness, and especially distribution of their church estates for the benefit of their families, are very common.'t

You know how the King and Commons changed positions in royal Charles's time. James, in 1605, had styled the bishops' life renters;' in 1641 this 'life rent' was converted into an extremely short lease. hold. A bill was introduced into the House of Commons early in that year 'to take away the bishops' votes in Parliament; and to leave them out in all commissions of the peace, and with relation to temporal affairs.' It did not pass the Lords, but this did not prevent another and another bill from being discussed in the Commons. The

* Muscutt on 'Church Laws,' p. 197-8.

+ Hallam's 'Constitutional History,' vol. i. c. 4.

bishops were at this time peculiarly unpopular. The country held them responsible for the war with Scotland, and for all the abuses that existed in the Church. When, therefore, the third bill was being discussed the people loudly clamoured for its passing. Clarendon tells us that, every day, multitudes from all parts of London flocked to Westminster, and standing opposite the Lords' house, shouted continuously, 'No bishops, no bishops!' The bill being delayed, their rage was directed against the prelates who had offended. They threatened to pull down their houses; they assaulted them in their coaches; and so terrified them that all the bishops absented themselves from attending Parliament. In consequence of this, on the 21st of December, the twelve bishops then in town presented a protest against the proceedings of Parliament during their constrained absence, which the Commons, on reading, decided to be treasonous, and with the consent of the Lords, the twelve bishops were committed to the Tower. Clarendon notices it as a mournful circumstance that only one gentleman' in the Commons spoke in their behalf, and he said—what do you think?' He did not believe the bishops were guilty of high treason, but that they were stark mad, and therefore desired they might be sent to Bedlam!' There was little difficulty after this in passing the Bishops Abolition Bill through both the Commons and Lords, and comparatively little in forcing the king's assent to it. On the 14th of February, 1642, the "Lords Spiritual' ceased to exist. This great reform, or rather revolution, was the last assented to by the king before he took up arms against the Parliament. It was almost forgotten by the national memory in the greater events that followed, but Puritans and Episcopalians kept alive for years the controversy which it occasioned. William Prynne wrote one of the best of his memorable tracts upon The Lordlie Prelacie, and Milton in almost all his prose works, takes occasion to congratulate the nation upon its riddance of this monstrous incumbrance.

Of course, the bishops were restored to power by Charles II., and I need not tell you that they are still in the House of Lords. They are not all members of the House, however; four only out of twelve of the Irish bishops can be present, and there are some new English bishoprics to which no seat in the Lords is attached. Nor have any of the colonial bishops seats in the Legislature. Mr. Hallam questions the fitness of the application and assumption of the title of Lord Bishop' in these cases, but it has always been the custom of English society to give and acknowledge certain titles of courtesy in cases where no legal claim in their favour could be sustained. But if the dignity of these lower bishops is not so great, their spiritual reputation is commonly greater than that of those who sit on the crimson benches at St. Stephen's; for all the lords spiritual are tainted by a bad line of descent. They have attained to their present position by the total sacrifice of the ancient rights and liberties of the Church. Their civil dignity has been won at the expense of their Christian freedom.

I now come to the PRIVILEGES of the bishops. With regard to

precedence, the following have priority in the order in which they are named: the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Archbishop of York; the Bishop of London; the Bishop of Durham; the Bishop of Winchester; and the other bishops in the order of their creation. The precedence of Canterbury before York was settled at the coronation of Richard II. Each strove for the pre-eminence, and Canterbury obtained it. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the first peer of the realm. The Archbishop of York has precedency over dukes, but not over the Lord Chancellor. The other bishops rank after viscounts.

2. The lords spiritual hold themselves at liberty to withdraw from the House of Lords when 'questions of blood' are under discussion. In this matter they act under the old canon law, which prohibits the clergy from taking part in councils involving questions of life and death. Some remarkable instances in English history where they have availed themselves of this right are worth quoting:

In the fifth year of Edward III. a Parliament was called for the redress of laws, but the prelates were of opinion that it did not belong to them to give counsel about keeping the peace, and they therefore withdrew themselves.

In the seventh year of Richard II., when the Bishop of Norwich was tried for treason, all the bishops absented themselves.

In the eleventh year of the same king's reign, when the five lords were tried, the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the bishops declared their right to be present, but absented themselves in consequence of the canon law.

In the twenty-first year of the same king the Archbishop of Canterbury was adjudged to be a traitor-none of the bishops being present.

In the second year of Henry IV. all the bishops left Parliament after the issue of the first writ against William Sawley, the protomartyr of England, for heresy.

At the trial of Sir John Oldcastle, in the fifth of Henry V., the bishops were absent.

At the trial of the Earl of Strafford, in King Charles I.'s reign, none of the bishops were present.

*

This absence by right of absence came, however, in course of time to be construed as a privation. In 1679, when the Earl of Danby was accused of high treason, and votes were of some importance, the Commons denied the right of the lords spiritual to be present. The question was very violently and hotly discussed, and a serious breach between the Lords and Commons seemed imminent, for the Lords came to a resolution that their spiritual compeers had a right to sit and vote in capital cases, until judgment of death should be pronounced. The matter was never finally decided. A dissolution of Parliament.

*All the above cases are quoted from a curious and learned pamphlet by Denis Lord Hollis, 'On the Right of Bishops to vote in Capital Cases.' London. 1679.

cut short the discussion, and the impeachment was not proceeded with.

3. The lords spiritual enjoy all the privileges common to the House of Lords, except the right of trial by peers. They may vote by proxy; they have a right to enter their protest against votes of which they disapprove; and they enjoy, by the charter of the forest and special Act of Parliament,* the right, in passing through the king's forests on the occasion of going to or returning from Parliament, to kill one or two of the king's deer, without warrant: in view of the keeper if he be present, or in blowing a horn if he be absent; that he may not seem to take the king's venison by stealth; a right of which I can imagine Bishop Tait or Bishop Jackson availing himself!

But if the lords spiritual have their peculiar privileges, they have also a great and peculiar DISABILITY. It has been decided that it is not necessary to summon them to Parliament, and that a Parliament is a proper and legal Parliament without them. Our Edward I., in his Parliament of St. Edmund's Bury, excluded them. Henry VIII., in the seventh year of his reign, consulted all the judges on this question, and they gave their unanimous opinion that our Lord the King might hold his Parliaments by himself, with the lords temporal and the commons, wholly without the lords spiritual.' Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity was passed with the dissent of all the bishops, and, therefore, the usual formula, By and with the consent of the lords temporal and spiritual,' is omitted. No bishops were summoned to the first two Parliaments of Charles II. Hence Coke, Selden, and Blackstone, agree in the opinion that there is no doubt of the validity of a law, though every lord spiritual should vote against it, and Coke holds that if the lords temporal were inferior to the lords spiritual in number, and all the lords temporal should vote against a bill, while all the lords spiritual should vote for it, it would yet not be a valid law.† Sir W. Blackstone, however, is of a contrary opinion, but analogy, as far as it goes, is against his authority.

I have now illustrated, although with less brevity than I could have wished, all the essential parts relating to the Dignity and the Privileges of the Lords Spiritual. I can easily imagine how strange some of them must seem to a Protestant whose church history has been free from state patronage and connexion, and whose church has not aimed for power in civil, more than for power in spiritual concerns; for our English hierarchy, as it is at present usually constituted, is less an ecclesiastical than a civil body; or rather like an otter in its habits, and mermaid in its constitution, it is both. What it was in the middle ages it is now, and will probably remain until the cycle of history shall bring us round again to another 1642.

* 9 Henry III. Blackstone.

Yours ever faithfully.

+ Blackstone, book i. c. 2. Coke, 4 Inst. s. 25.