[Sidenote: 1660.] Ecclesiastical claimants argued, that such property had been illegally secularized, and that those who had received it had taken it with all the risks of a bad title. In justice to the Convention it should be remarked, that it passed a resolution favourable to the rights of those who had purchased Church lands on the faith of the Parliament;[120] and, in justice to Charles II., that he issued a Commission in November, 1660, to inquire into the history of such transactions. This Commission was authorized to compose differences between the Bishops and the purchasers of estates, the direction being, that Archbishops, Bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons were to accept such reasonable conditions as should be tendered to them by the Commissioners on behalf of such purchasers; and that they would do no act to the prejudice of any purchasers, by granting new or concurrent leases whereby their existing interest or position might be injured, while the same was under deliberation, and until His Majesty's pleasure should be further known.[121] In accordance with the spirit of this Commission the King dealt leniently with those who had become possessed of Crown property; and this circumstance, which was creditable to him, caused the course adopted by the authorities of the Church to appear the more reprehensible. The Resolution passed by the Convention came to nothing, upon the dissolution of that Assembly; and the holders of Church lands, unprotected by Parliament, and left to the mercy of clerical claimants, experienced severe treatment.[122] Old incumbents, writhing under the remembrance of wrong, and seeking compensation for their losses, refused compensation to their enemies, and made the best bargain they could for themselves. [Sidenote: ECCLESIASTICAL PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.] It is convenient in this connection to allude to a change in certain privileges which indirectly affected, to some extent, the revenues of the Church. Amongst feudal rights were those of tenures by Knight's-service, including the benefits of marriages, reliefs, and wardships. Though the profits derived from the Court of Wards were casual, they amounted sometimes to a considerable sum, but these and other contingent revenues were, by a Parliamentary arrangement, withdrawn from the Sovereign, and in lieu of the income thus forfeited, one moiety of the excise became settled on the Crown. The Act affected the revenues of the Church, and of this circumstance a remarkable illustration is afforded by a paper in the Record Office, in which the Bishop of Durham complains of a loss of £2,000 through the abolition of these courts.[123] [Sidenote: 1660.]