Replies to Minor Queries.
Royal Assent, &c. (Vol. vi., p. 556.).—
1. No such forms as those referred to by Clarendon are usual now.
2. The last time the prerogative of rejecting a bill, after passing both Houses of Parliament, was exercised, was in 1692, when William III. refused his assent to the bill for Triennial Parliaments. Two years after, however, he was induced to allow the bill to become the law of the land.
J. R. W.
Bristol.
Can Bishops vacate their Sees? (Vol. v., p. 156.).—R. C. C., in his reply to this Query of K. S., writes, that he has never heard of any but Dr. Pearce who wished so to do.
There is another instance in the case of Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, who, having failed in his attempt to exchange his bishopric for some canonry or headship at Oxford, applied to the Secretary of State for his majesty's permission to resign his bishopric.
So extraordinary a petition excited his majesty's curiosity, and caused his inquiry from whence it came; when, learning that the person was his old acquaintance, Dr. Berkeley, he declared that he should die a bishop in spite of himself, but gave him full power to choose his own place of residence. This was in 1753.
The above is taken from Bp. Mant's History of the Church of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 534.