Convocation having solemnly assembled, and the usual preliminaries being accomplished, Atterbury was intent on going to work; but his correspondence indicates that he moved too fast to please some of his brethren, and that he had reason to apprehend they meant to reject his leadership. They had not proceeded many steps, when Dr. Ashurst and Dr. Freeman incurred Atterbury’s censure, because after the Archbishop’s form of prorogation had come down, and the Prolocutor had informed the House they were not to regard themselves as being prorogued until he told them they were, these two gentlemen, as the Archdeacon states, were very noisy, insisting upon it that they were actually prorogued, and that it was a dangerous thing for them, under such circumstances, to sit any longer. The Prolocutor immediately arose, and said, as these gentlemen were fidgeting about in their scarlet robes, that if they thought they were incurring any risk, they were at liberty to depart. They immediately rose, with the hope of a respectable following, but as they vanished, they were, if we may depend on an opponent’s report, followed only by a general smile, and the condemnation of their own party.[339] Another question agitated the House the same day. Complaints were made of episcopal interference with the election of clergymen, and accordingly a resolution to that effect passed the House, supported by a large number, says one authority--by a small number, says another.[340] The same day a committee was appointed to investigate disputed elections--a step which, in the estimation of Low Churchmen encroached upon the episcopal prerogative, for they maintained that the Bishop with his suffragans must be the final judge of all such matters.[341] [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.] [Sidenote: 1701.]