§ LORD REDESDALE,in moving for copies of the Form of Writs issued for the Summoning and Prorogation of the Convocation of the Clergy of the Province of York, said, that their Lordships would, no doubt, recollect that last Session he had called their attention to the subject of Convocation; and certainly since then the subject had lost none of the general interest with which it was regarded throughout the country. He believed there was a steady and progressive desire on the part of those interested in the Church that her members should enjoy the same privilege of governing its affairs by means of an assembly of its members as was enjoyed by the Church of Scotland and all other religious communities throughout the kingdom. At the present moment there was no doubt that great exertions were making on the part of the Romish Church to introduce synodal action into England; and therefore there was more ground than there ever had been to think that our Church should have its own appropriate organ of general opinion and deliberation. He was certain that the occurrences of the last few years must have convinced most people that it was necessary there should be some body to which matters both of inquiry and rule should be referred, and that neither House of Parliament was a proper body to inquire or decide on subjects connected with the Church. It could not be denied that the Church of England was deficient in some kind of tribunal to which could be submitted the control of her internal regulations. In whatever manner the deficiency was to be supplied, at all events there was a deficiency in our present regulations which did require to be met. With these remarks he dismissed the general subject; but he wished to draw their Lordships' attention to certain internal regulations respecting Convocation, and more particularly the Convocation of the Province of York. Their Lordships were aware that the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury regularly met, and its proceedings did in a certain degree take a form that showed it to be a body constituted for regular action on all occasions; it was regularly constituted, and though it did not proceed to important deliberation, it might to a certain extent be said to discuss business. There was an address to the Crown on this occasion of its meeting; petitions were received, and acts of that 421 sort performed; though it was unquestionable that for a great number of years no licences had been granted to discuss other blatters, or enter on topics of importance. As regarded the Convocation of the Province of York, though it was a body, in fact, more popularly constituted—that was, with more elective members belonging to it than the Province of Canterbury—its action had been of a more limited character for a great number of years, and it had for a long period ceased to transact any business. The Convocation of that Province had never been divided into two houses; the prelates had always sat in the same house with the minor clergy. He supposed that had partly arisen, if not entirely, from the fact of there being a very small number of bishops attached to the Province of York, and also from this other circumstance, that York being a place to which none of those bishops were necessarily drawn by business in the same way as on the meeting of Parliament, the prelates of the Province of Canterbury were necessarily drawn to London, the prelates were represented by proxy. He spoke comparatively, but little business was done by that Convocation. At the same time it was desirable to bear in mind that that body had been by no means deprived of the power of exercising those functions which duly belonged to the Convocation of any Province. It had been represented in some quarters that the sanction of the Convocation of York was not given to the Canons of 1603. Now this was distinctly a mistake, for in the year 1604, the Convocation of the archdiocese of York was summoned specially for that purpose by Archbishop Hutton. At the time of meeting the see had become vacant by the death of that prelate; but the Bishop of Bristol, who was Dean of York, was appointed president under the King's writ by the dean and chapter. Again, after the Restoration, when the Prayer-book and Liturgy were to be adopted and formally recognised by the different Convocations, in order to facilitate business the prelates of the Province of York sat and deliberated with those of Canterbury. The clergy of the Convocation of York regularly met, and deputed the deans of St. Paul's, Westminster, and Ely, with other Members, to represent their body in the lower house. On that occasion matters of the highest importance to the Church were discussed and decided. The only other time at which the Convocation of 422 York had adopted any step for a special address to the Crown, was in Queen Anne's reign, when an address of thanks was voted to Her Majesty for the Royal Bounty. Since that time the Convocation regularly met, but it had never been allowed to proceed to business. Until 1847, when the present Convocation met, matters remained in that state. Prior to the meeting of that Convocation, certain of the clergy, with the sanction of the late Archbishop of York, expressed a desire that the Convocation of York should, in the same manner as that of Canterbury, present a loyal address to Her Majesty; and the late Archbishop entirely concurred in that proposal, and had communicated with the other bishops of the Province, when an address was agreed upon, which it was determined should be proposed to Convocation. In the interval which took place between the preparation of the address and the meeting of Convocation, the death of that prelate took place, and the prebend who presided in his room probably felt that there would be a responsibility resting upon him for allowing a course of proceeding different to that observed on former occasions; and he adjourned or prorogued the assembly before the address was adopted. At that meeting of the Convocation a petition from certain bodies of the clergy on the subject of elections to Convocation was received; but no other business was transacted in Convocation. In 1848, 1849, and 1850, no attendance was given by the Archbishop at the annual meetings. In the present year Convocation was still prorogued to the same day in February fixed for the meeting of Parliament. The day before Convocation was convened, certain members of Convocation who had petitions from bodies of the clergy in all the different dioceses of the Province, excepting that of Sodor and Man, notified to the right reverend Prelate that they proposed to attend and present these petitions on the day on which Convocation was appointed to meet. On that day they did attend, and the Session was not opened. They adjourned to the chapter-house library, and proceeded to write a letter to the Archbishop, informing him of their desire to present petitions. To this letter his Grace sent a very courteous reply, stating that he, in the absence of any licence from the Crown to proceed to business, declined to open the Convocation, and that he could only request that the petitions might be forwarded to him, in 423 order that they might he entered on the records. He (Lord Redesdale) would admit that the course pursued by the Archbishop was in accordance with the usual practice; and he was sure that he should not be answering the wishes of those who had applied to him to bring this matter forward, and whose sole motive in appealing to him was because they thought there would be less offence in thi3 subject being taken up by one who was connected with the general question, and not by one who was immediately connected with themselves—he was sure that he would not be fulfilling their desires if he said anything that in any way reflected upon the conduct of the right reverend Prelate on that occasion. Every one must appreciate the right reverend Prelate's just unwillingness to take any step of an unusual nature, without the most deliberate consideration and the best advice. At the same time he must feel that it was a matter perfectly open to be canvassed and discussed, whether the practice that had grown up in Convocation, of not opening the session, was one that ought to be continued, or that could be justified by reason or even by custom. At present the matter stood thus. Hitherto attendance was only given on the first day of the meeting of a new Convocation, and on that occasion the session was always formally opened. After the first meeting it was not opened, because it had been found, for a long period, that there was no attendance. But there was the precedent that when attendance was given, the session was opened. Therefore, when attendance was given on the last occasion, as in fact in obedience to the Queen's writ it should always be, the session ought to have been opened, to enable parties charged with petitions to present them. At all events he was sure that the feeling must be shared by every one that the clergy of one Province should not be denied privileges that were enjoyed by the clergy of another; and that the clergy of the Province of York should be placed upon the same footing in this respect as the clergy of the Province of Canterbury. He hoped in calling attention to this subject—and doing so in a manner which he trusted was not offensive to any one—that we were now in the way of seeing some uniformity established. Nor, in fulfilling the wishes of those who were deeply interested in the question, could he help expressing a hope that if it should appear desirable, the right reverend 424 Prelate (the Archbishop of York) would, on the occasion of a future Convocation, allow the session to be opened, as had been done in the Province of Canterbury; and also that he would turn over in his mind whether the example which was about to be set by his lamented predecessor was not one which would be most grateful to the clergy of the Province over which he presided. The late Archbishop of York— than whom no one had been better acquainted with the wishes of the clergy— had been willing to follow a course which showed that he not only saw no danger in adopting this measure, but that he was satisfied of the propriety of doing so. With these remarks he begged to conclude with the Motion of which he had given notice.
§
Moved—
That there he laid before this House Copies of the Form of Writs used for the Summoning and Porogation of the Convocation of the Clergy of the Province of York.
The ARCHBISHOP of YORK,said: I beg to thank the noble Lord for having made known to me his intention to bring forward this subject, and for the temperate and courteous manner in which he has treated it. My venerable predecessor, it was very true, had given an unwilling assent to the proposal mentioned by the noble Lord in 1847. But on the accession of Her present Majesty to the Throne in 1837, when it was proposed that an address of congratulation should be agreed upon in Convocation, the late Archbishop absolutely forbade it, because it was a thing that had not been done for the last 180 years. It was certainly the fact, however, that the most rev. Prelate, being then at a very advanced age, shortly before his death, after great solicitation from certain parties, did give a tardy and reluctant assent to the receiving of petitions by Convocation. With regard to the last meeting of Convocation referred to by the noble Lord, I will briefly narrate the circumstances of the case to your Lordships. When I received the Queen's writ, I immediately transmitted it to the deputy registrar, directing him that whatever aforetime had been done in such cases should also be done upon that occasion. The deputy registrar was not a young or inexperienced officer, for he had held his situation from an early part of this century, and he succeeded his father, who was appointed in 1779, and for some years previously had dis- 425 charged the duties of the office as head clerk; so that the two together may he said to have held the office for nearly 100 years. I have myself also made the fullest inquiries on the subject, and I find that since the time of Henry VIII. no Archbishop of York (as I believe) except on two occasions, namely, at the Revolution in 1689, and in the year 1708, had ever attended this meeting of Convocation in person. There were always certain commissioners, consisting of the Dean and Chapter, some of whom were always within the city of York; and these commissioners had always acted for the Archbishop on these occasions. It is true that the present Convocation met on the 4th of February last, and that one of its members sent me a letter on the previous day to say that certain petitions would be presented. I simply acknowledged the receipt of that letter, and I gave orders that the same course should be pursued as had always been done before. I presumed that an opportunity would be given to meet; for it does seem strange that gentlemen should be summoned to a meeting, and if they come in obedience to the summons, that no one should he there to receive them. On the 5th of February (the day after the meeting) I received a memorial from five members of Convocation, stating that certain of the clergy had gone to the Chapterhouse the day before, but there was nobody in attendance, and they had adjourned to the Chapter library. I then wrote on the same day to the deputy registrar, asking whether the usual course had been pursued in proroguing the Convocation; and the reply I received from that officer distinctly was, that all which had been done was strictly consistent and conformable with the usual practice. With respect to the writs from the Crown, my secretary had made a careful search among the ecclesiastical records of the Province, and his written opinion was, that ever since the present Archbishop's translation the manner in which the writs of the Crown had been acted upon had been strictly accordant with established precedent, and in no way involved any departure from the ancient practice. I also hold in my hand a letter which I have received from Mr. Canon Dixon, who states that he had held the office of domestic chaplain to the late Archbishop, and had been a canon of York for the last 26 years, and constantly resident within three 426 miles of the cathedral. Mr. Dickson, who in addition to other learning, is an accomplished antiquarian, had diligently examined the records of the Province, and he assures me that my most reverend predecessor had never been present in person at either the opening or the adjournment of Convocation — that no address had been sent to the Crown from Convocation since the Restoration—that no Archbishop had been present since the days of Archbishop Sharp in 1708—and that the proceedings with regard to the prorogation of Convocation on the 4th of February last, were entirely consistent with ancient usage. What was done was done according to ancient, long-continued, immemorial, and invariable precedent. Under these circumstances, I can only say with regard to the hope expressed by my noble Friend, that I shall give no pledge binding myself to depart from the established practice; the only pledge I can give is this, that the suggestion of my noble Friend shall receive my best consideration.
§ LORD LYTTELTONwished now to repeat what he stated when the subject of the revival of Convocation was last before their Lordships, that he should be extremely sorry to sec Convocation in either Province brought into action with its present constitution; still more was he averse to its being revived irregularly, or by surprise. He thought the first thing it ought to do on assembling was to revise its own constitution, and that nothing satisfactory could be accomplished until that preliminary step had been taken. But this referred to the power of passing canons, or doing other acts that would be binding on the Church. That the right of the clergy of the Province of York, like that of the Province of Canterbury, to memoralise, petition, or address the Crown when they thought fit, should be recognised, was, he thought, a very fair and reasonable proposition. The right rev. Prelate relied upon the information of others when he said that the Convocation at York had been prevented from meeting strictly and exactly in accordance with precedent. Now, he (Lord Lyttelton) had learned that there was one occasion, on Nov. 19, 1847, when a petition with regard to the election of a Proctor in the Archdiocese of York was taken into consideration, and actually passed in Convocation, as appeared on the records of the Court. That, he thought, did form a precedent. But the main point 427 was, that whereas on former occasions there had been no business to transact, on this occasion notice had been given to the Archbishop that petitions would be brought forward, and that was the real grievance complained of. He ventured to express a hope that the most rev. Prelate would take into his consideration whether it was not possible, in accordance with precedent even, or at all events with substantial propriety and justice, for him to follow the example which was already in operation in the Province of Canterbury, and to allow the clergy of the Province of York, when they thought fit, to make known their wishes to the Crown by memorial, or otherwise.
§ LORD REDESDALEsaid, that he was sure that all their Lordships would receive the assurance of the right rev. Prelate with the same satisfaction as he did.
§ On Question, agreed to.