The case of one Stone, originating during the fourth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is interesting as showing the effect of clergy upon crimes committed preceding the granting of clergy to the criminal. Stone had committed two felonies in one day, one of which was clergyable and the other not. He was first indicted upon the crime which was clergyable and being found guilty, was admitted to clergy and the judgment was recorded. Having been adjudged guilty at a subsequent session upon the non-clergyable felony, the conviction on the clergyable offense was set up in bar and was held to be good, by a divided court, seven of the thirteen deciding that since he had been once placed in jeopardy, it should not be presumed that the felony for which clergy was not admissible was committed before the other and _in favorem vitae_, the most merciful side should be taken and though the felony upon which he was convicted last was committed after the other one, yet since the felon had suffered judgment upon the former conviction, as a clerk convict, he should not be arraigned upon the second indictment, because the effect of the discharge on the conviction was to acquit him of all felonies committed before the conviction, as he should have been arraigned for all his offenses before his clergy was allowed and the court would be presumed to have had them in mind, as this was the duty of the court, and the effect of his clergy was to discharge him of all preceding felonies.[22] The judgment of the court, in Stone’s case, as to the effect of clergy upon a preceding crime, was followed in an early North Carolina case,[23] where the court held that if the defendant claimed clergy for an offense committed before clergy was granted to him, this claim should be urged the same as a pardon, when the prisoner was brought up for judgment on the latter conviction. The distinction between “clergyable” and “unclergyable” crimes was not so clearly defined during the thirteenth century, as at a later period. At this time the benefit of clergy was but the privilege of “ordained clerks” and the legislation of king John’s reign shows that the exemption was slowly and by degrees ordained as not applicable to the crime of high treason.[24] While the exemption to the clerks of the twelfth century was much broader than later, during the thirteenth century clerks could be tried for all minor offenses and in Bracton’s day clerks were answerable to civil process the same as the laity.[25] The clergy had so far established the exemption of their persons from corporal pains, that during the reign of Henry III. it was enacted that a clerk, taken for the death of a man, or for any other crime, if demanded by the ordinary, was to be immediately delivered, without inquisition, to the court Christian, to make canonical purgation and to establish his innocence or stand convicted.[26]