§ MR. BRYN ROBERTS (Carnarvonshire,) EifionI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to a statement in The Manchester Guardian of the 23rd instant, that the Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury, in the recent proceedings at Bow Church on the confirmation of the election of the Bishop of Peterborough, omitted the decree to proceed, by which a public acknowledgment is made that the confirmation of the Bishop proceeds in obedience to the command of Our Sovereign Lady the Queen; whether such omission was made; and, if so, what was the reason of such omission, and what is its effect on the validity or otherwise of the confirmation; and whether the public acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Crown made in the decree to proceed can be omitted or altered without an alteration of the law?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYYes, I have seen the statement, and am informed by the Vicar-General that it is correct. The forms which are used at the confirmation of a Bishop, and of which the decree to proceed forms part, should certainly not be altered without proper authority, and but for a momentary inadvertence, as I understand, would have been strictly followed in the present case. They have never, however, received 1256 statutory sanction I am informed that the omission of the decree will not affect the validity of the confirmation. The proceedings are based throughout on an acknowledgment of the Royal supremacy.