1. The Three Estates of the Realm are, the Spiritualty, the Nobility, and the Commonalty: on this fact there is no dispute. The last is as certainly the third estate (tiers état). But MR. FRASER demurs to my ranking the Spiritual Estate as the first, quoting the Collect in the Service for the fifth of November, which runs, "the Nobility, Clergy, and Commonalty." On this point I am not prepared with a decisive authority; but certainly the language and practice of Parliament is with me. The Lords Spiritual are always named before the Lords Temporal, and precedence is allotted to them accordingly; the Archbishops ranking above the Earls (with the more recent distinctions of Marquess and Duke), and the Bishops above the Temporal Barons [Qy. What was the relative rank of the other "prelates" who were formerly in Parliament?]. To the same effect is the language of the celebrated preamble to the act 24 Henry VIII. c. 12.:—
"This realm of England is an empire ... governed by one supreme head and King ... unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty, be bounden and owen."
2. The Convocations of the Clergy (which are two synods sitting in three houses) are no part of the Parliament. MR. FRASER thinks "this point was settled somewhat late in our history;" but it is proved (I submit) in the very extracts which he produces from ancient statutes. Since there is no doubt that the Clergy sat regularly in Convocation, we should not hear of their occasional presence in the House of Commons had the Convocation been deemed a part of Parliament. It is certain that Convocation never exercised the powers which belong to a chamber of Parliament; even their own subsidies to the Crown were ratified and passed in Parliament before they became legally binding. [See on the whole of this subject, Burn's Eccl. Law (Phillimore's ed.), tit. "Convocation," vol. ii. pp. 19-23.] MR. FRASER has certainly adduced instances in which the assent of the Clergy was given to particular statutes; he might have added the recital of their submission to the Crown, in the Act of Supremacy, 26 Henry VIII. c. 1. He has shown also that clerical proctors were occasionally introduced into the House of Commons, like the judges (he says) in the House of Lords. But this is far from making those proctors, or the Convocation which sent them, a part of the Parliament. Indeed it is shown that they were not by the petition of the Lower House of Convocation (cited by MR. FRASER), in which they desire "to be admitted to sit in Parliament with the House of Commons, according to antient usage." It is clear that they who so petitioned did not esteem themselves to be, as a Convocation, already part of the Parliament. The Convocation would indeed have become the Spiritual Estate in Parliament, if the Clergy had acceded to the wise and patriotic design of King Edward I. But they, affecting an imperium in imperio, refused to assemble at the King's writ as a portion of the Parliament of their country, and chose to tax themselves apart in their Provincial Synods, where they used the forms of a separate Parliament for the Church.
3. Hence the Spiritual Estate was, and still is, represented in Parliament by the Spiritual Lords. William the Conqueror having converted their sees into baronies, they were obliged, like other tenants in capite, to obey the royal summons to Parliament. When I called it a mistake to suppose that our Bishops sit in the Upper House only as Barons, I did not mean that they are not so, in the present constitution of Parliament, but that such was not the origin of the prelates being called to share in the legislation of the realm. The other clergy, however, retained their tenure of frankalmoigne, and stood aloof alike from the councils and from the burdens of the state. Attendance in Parliament being chiefly given for the purpose of voting taxes, the Commons, as well as the Clergy, looked upon it as a burden more than a privilege. But while the Clergy were quickly compelled to bear their share of the public burdens, their short-sighted policy deprived them of the voice which is now enjoyed by other degrees of Englishmen in the affairs of the country. While Convocation was sitting, the Clergy could make their sentiments known by the Bishops who represented their Estate in Parliament; and we often find the Lower House of Convocation petitioning their lordships to make statements of this kind in their places in Parliament. But in the present suspension of Convocation and the disuse of diocesan synods, the Clergy have lost their weight with the Bishops themselves; and that once formidable Estate of the Realm retains but the shadow of a representation in Parliament.
MR. FRASER will find this account of the matter fully borne out by the extract he has given from Bennet's Narrative. "The King in full Parliament charged the Prelates, Earls, Barons, and other great men, and the Knights of the shire, and the Commons," to give him counsel. Here we have a description of Parliament precisely as it is constituted at this day, and the "Prelates" are the only members of the Spiritualty. Then we read "the Prelates deliberated 'with the clergy by themselves' (i.e. in Convocation), and the Earls and Barons by themselves, and the Knights and others of the Commons by themselves; and then, 'in full Parliament' (as before), each by themselves, and afterwards all in common answered," i.e. the Clergy deliberated in Convocation, but answered in Parliament by their Prelates.
It is true, as MR. FRASER observes, that the majority of the Upper House of Parliament binds the Clergy though all the Bishops should be dissentient, as in Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. This is the result of the Spiritual Estate voting in the same chamber with the Nobility; and to avoid such a result the Commons very early demanded a chamber to themselves. The Spiritualty is thus yet further reduced under the power of the Temporalty; for "the authority of Parliament" (as Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity words it) is and must be supreme, however defective its representative constitution. It were certainly to be wished that those liberal reformers who were so shocked at burgage tenures and rotten boroughs, would extend their compassion to the disfranchised clergy, some five or six hundred of whom are "represented," without their consent or opinion asked, by a prelate appointed by the Crown.
On the whole, the Convocation is "the true Church of England by representation" (Canon 139) in such matters as belong to the Church as distinguished from the State; but in Parliament, which is the State, the Spiritualty is represented by the Bishops alone.
I am astonished that MR. FRASER should stumble at my remark, that the Three Estates still assemble in common for the final passing of every act. I had thought that the ceremony of giving the royal assent in full Parliament to bills previously deliberated upon in the two Houses apart, had been sufficiently well known.
CANON EBOR.
P.S.—Since writing the above I have lighted upon the following authorities, confirming the position that the Spiritual Estate is represented in Parliament by the Bishops, and also that it is ranked as the "First Estate of the Realm." Can MR. FRASER adduce any authority whatever for applying that designation to the Clergy in Convocation?