wrote, how much influence he had acquired over his patron's mind. The intimate, cordial, and approving friend of Atterbury could not but be opposed to the proceedings of Tenison and Burnet. Sprat was not a man of much principle; he had joined with Dryden and Waller in poetic praise of Oliver Cromwell, he had sat on James' High Commission, he had read the Declaration of Indulgence in servile submissiveness, but with faltering lips; he had voted for the Regency, and then taken the new oaths, and assisted at the Coronation; and though he had cleared himself from the charge of treason, there is reason to believe that he was Jacobite at heart. He hated Nonconformists, and went in for High Church measures; and as no love was lost between the Bishops of Rochester and Salisbury, the latter said of the former, he had "been deeply engaged in the former reigns, and he stuck firm to the party to which, by reason of the liberties of his life, he brought no sort of honour." 1 In the spring of 1701, when the great ecclesiastical tournament was going on within the Abbey walls, a new ecclesiastical knight entered the lists outside, in the field. of literature. He not only broke a lance, but engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with the famous antagonist who had distinguished himself equally in bookwriting and in debate; White Kennet came forward to answer Francis Atterbury. White Kennet-a curiouslooking person, whose forehead, to the day of his death, bore witness to an accident which happened in his youth, for he wore a large patch of black velvet over a ghastly scar-was a man of great archeological research, an eminent Saxon scholar, and a friend of Mr. Tanner and of Dr. Hicks. He had published, in 1695, his well known Parochial Antiquities, and now he sent forth his Ecclesiastical Synods and Parliamentary Convocations historically stated and vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Mr. Atterbury. The title intimates that the object was not to test the Convocation question by applying to it texts of Scripture, or the opinions of the Fathers, or principles of reason, or the results of experience; but to examine it closely in its connection with English history and English law. After the fashion of the day, especially as it appears in the polemical department, whilst using occasionally courteous expressions, he deals very unpleasant blows, depreciating his opponent's learning, exposing his mistakes, pointing out where he had confounded facts and fallen into sophistry, not omitting to throw the shield of his erudition over Dr. Wake, who had been roughly handled by his excited adversaries. Kennet's main positions were that Parliamentary Convocations are not in essence and nature the same things as ecclesiastical synods; that not spiritual affairs, but the taxing of the Clergy, gave the first occasion of their being called together in connection with Parliament-their first appearance in that association being in the year 1282, in the eleventh year of Edward I., the first proctors of the rural priesthood being soon brought into parliamentary attendance. Repeatedly he asserts that Parliamentary Convocations, although ecclesiastical in their constituent parts, are not ecclesiastical in their objects and purposes, and he repeatedly charges Atterbury with confusing civil councils with sacred synods.1 It was a pet idea with Atterbury, that Bishops should avail themselves of the pramunientes clause. Kennet 1 See Ecclesiastical Synods, 99-149, 245. undertook to show that he was mistaken as to the time of its origin; that he incorrectly maintained the constancy of its practical application; that he was deceived in his notice of its nature and effect, and that the modern had not, any more than the ancient Clergy, reason to be fond of it. The provincial summons to Convocation, issued by an Archbishop, he maintained to be a sufficient authority without diocesan writs. "From the three or four first years of Queen Elizabeth," he says, "" when the Protestant Clergy might be trusted for obedient subjects, there is not one proof that ever any Bishop made a return of the pramunientes to the Crown, or that ever the Crown challenged such a return from any Bishop."1 Of the erudition and ingenuity shown in Kennet's book there can be no doubt: it clears up some interesting archeological points in English history; but I am at a loss to understand what bearing his arguments, as far as they go for it must be remembered he gives only the first part of the work-are meant to have on the practical determination of the controversy. If, as he represented, the existing Convocation was but the relic of an extinguished prerogative of self-taxation, once possessed by the Clergy, then it remained only the shadow of a name, and stood amongst the meaningless things which it would be a good clearance to sweep away. If he took such a view, he does not, as far as I can find, express it; rather he assumes throughout, that Convocations by Royal authority, under archiepiscopal control, without the power of making laws or discussing theological or ecclesiastical questions, are quite wise and proper. How they can be so when reduced to such a nullity, it is difficult to conceive. Kennet's theory, to any one free 1 See Ecclesiastical Synods, 299. from the prejudices and heartburnings of the dispute, is unsatisfactory to the last degree. When winter approached, the prospect of a new Parliament and a new Convocation opened on the eyes of Atterbury with a fascinating effect; and as the autumn leaves fell in the London parks, the Archdeacon girded up his loins for a fresh attack. He was concerned about many things about the opposition his party was likely to encounter, about the exact place of meeting of the Clergy, and about the execution of the pramunientes clause, notwithstanding Kennet's destructive criticisms. He says to Trelawny, "Unless some spirit be put into our affairs, and the managers of them, and they attend here punctually, and behave courageously, our cause must sink, and we must be broken; for we are beset, and unless a vigorous stand be made, shall find they will be too hard for us. Their Lay interest is much stronger than it is imagined to be; they know it, and feel it, and accordingly speak in a much higher strain than ever they used to do, and talk more securely of success at the next meeting.' It was thought the Lower House needed more room for their assembly. Sir Christopher Wren was consulted on the subject; but "any carpenter in the town understood that matter as well as he, and I would undertake," said the impatient Archdeacon, "to bring one that should contrive seats to hold near six score, which is more than ever yet met at once."2 Christmas festivities had scarcely ended, holly branches still hung in the parish churches, when the new Convocation met. The day before New Years' Day, after a Latin service read by the Bishop of Oxford, a 1 Atterbury's Correspondence, iii. 53. 2 Ibid, 57. Latin sermon preached by the Dean of St. Paul's, and the King's writ and the Bishop of London's certificate formally delivered, "the Archbishop admonished the Clergy to retire into the chapel, at the west end of the church, where morning prayers are usually said, and there, under the conduct of the Dean of St. Paul's, to choose a Prolocutor, and present him in Henry the VII.'s Chapel, on Tuesday, the 13th of January."1 No sooner had they met for that purpose, than the old embers of strife were kindled afresh, and blazed up furiously as before. The first contention pertained to proxy votes, the Dean of Canterbury contending they were valid, others answering they were quite contrary to custom, and indeed, that absent members were guilty of contumacy till their absence received judicial excuse, and therefore lay under a canonical impediment,2 which for the time deprived them of their ecclesiastical power. The election of Prolocutor was the next struggle. Even such a candidate as Beveridge, decided Anglican as he was, could not satisfy the extreme party, and they elected, by a majority of 36 or 37 against 30, the Dean of Salisbury, Dr. Woodward, a civilian who had grown popular with High Churchmen by opposing his Diocesan. At that very moment, the two were engaged in litigation with each other; and, in addition to this circumstance, which rendered the election unseemly, the fact should be remembered that Woodward, now a sharp thorn in the sides of Burnet, owed to that Prelate his church preferment. The election over, the new Prolocutor approached the chair occupied by the Dean of St. Paul's as temporary president whilst the votes were being taken; but the 1 Lathbury's History of Convocation, 363. |