[331] See Hallam, ii. 396.
[332] Since writing the above I find Mr. Freeman, in his Norman Conquest (vol. iv. 343), speaking of an Ecclesiastical Synod in 1070 as beginning to be distinguished from the general Gemotes; and, again (360), noticing that the King held his Court for five days, and then the Archbishop held his Synod for three days more. “Here are the beginnings of the anomalous position of the two Convocations in England, half ecclesiastical Synods, half estates of the Realm—each character hindering the effectual working of the other.”
[333] Convocation is now (1872) entering upon a new phase of its history, the results of which deserve careful study.
[334] Burnet, ii. 280.
[335] Atterbury’s Corresp., iii. 10.
[336] Ibid., 11, 13, 17.
An address was presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury by the Clergy of the Diocese of Wells, assembled to elect Proctors, stating that they were advised they had a right to be summoned to Westminster by virtue of the præmunientes clause.—Lambeth MSS., Gibson, vi. 1.
But the next paper in the same volume is an address to the elected Proctors, breathing a spirit of profound submission to the Archbishop, and calling the King “His Sacred Majesty, and the Supreme Head of the Church on earth.”
At the election of Proctors for the Diocese of Bristol, a paper was introduced advocating the view of the præmunientes clause taken by Atterbury.—Gibson, vi. 3.
[337] The Bishop of Norwich wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 8th January, 1701, remarking, “I could with humble submission wish there might be no license for business this first session, for if there should be, it will be thought the effect of Mr. A.’s book, and they will not greatly regard the strength of any answer while they carry their chief point; it is also to be suspected they will vote it their right and privilege to sit and do business as often as the Houses of Parliament do; but if a good answer to that book shall precede the sitting of the Convocation, persons will probably meet with more settled and easy minds, and fall more kindly to business, and also suppose there was more than ordinary reason for their meeting.”—Lambeth MSS., Gibson, 933, 41.