Convocational history in the reign of William III., from the year 1689 to the year 1700, is simply a history of writs and prorogations. During that period no business was ever transacted, the Lower House never met. Tillotson and Tenison, knowing the temper prevalent in the Church, aware of the influence of the nonjuring Clergy, sensible of the wide diffusion of sympathy with them, and alive to the fact of an extensive revival of High-Church principles, were apprehensive of a collision between the two Houses in case they proceeded to business. They therefore thought it prudent to hold in abeyance the right of meeting, until some exigency rendered their coming together indispensable. Indignant murmurs at this state of things freely escaped the lips of many a Dean, Prebendary, Archdeacon, and Rector; and at length found utterance in a publication, which produced a wonderful impression, and led to important results. Few pamphlets have been more famous in their day than the _Letter to a Convocation Man_, published in the year 1697. It was widely circulated, read by all sorts of people, canvassed in City coffee-houses, discussed in country inns, talked of by parishioners under church porches, and pondered in rectories, vicarages, and quiet homes all over England. It made, says Nicholson, “a considerable noise and pother in the kingdom.”[326] The _Letter_ insisted upon the state of the country--so marked by false and pernicious principles, by irreligious indifference, and by immoral conduct--as a reason why the representatives of the Church should assemble in their legal capacity. The constitutional right of Convocation was strongly urged, the Royal writ needful for it being, as the writer alleged, no more a sign of precariousness in this case, than is a Royal writ in any other. A resemblance was traced between Convocation and Parliament, and curious antiquarian and legal questions were reviewed. The author touched on the mode of summoning Convocation--a subject which requires to be explained, not only on account of the use which he made of it, but on account of a use to which it was put by another advocate on the same side. [Sidenote: 1697.]