With this last extract from Burnet, let the following from Lathbury be compared:-- "This clause, it appears, was inserted in the bishops' writ in the twenty-third year of Edward I. When assembled by this writ, the Clergy constituted a State Convocation, not the Provincial Synod. When the clause was inserted, there was a danger of invasion from France; and it is clear that the Clergy were not assembled by this clause as an Ecclesiastical Council, but to assist the King in his necessities. This is evident from the words '_hujus modi periculis et excogitatis malitiis obviandum_.' The clause was, however, continued in the writ after the cause for its insertion had ceased to exist: _but whenever they were summoned by virtue of this writ, they constituted a part of the {541} Parliament_. The clause, with a slight variation, _is still retained_ in the writ by which the bishops are summoned to Parliament."--Lathbury's _History of the Convocation of the Church of England_, p. 121. It will be obvious, then, and plain to the reader of the above passage, that when the clergy were summoned by this clause _Præmunientes_, in the writ directed to the archbishops, they were summoned _to be a part of Parliament_; but the King's writ was that which made Convocation what it was--which made it a legal, constitutional, parliamentary assembly, with definite power and authority--instead of a simple synodical meeting of the clergy, whose influence would be solely moral or ecclesiastical. Convocation, from the time of Edward I., that is, from its first beginning, has been a part of parliament, being "an assembly of ecclesiastics for civil purposes, called to parliament by the King's writ" to the archbishops; and before the time of Henry VIII. it voted subsidies to the King independently of the Houses of Lords and Commons. Of this clause _Præmunientes_, CANON. EBOR. has taken no notice whatever, although in the extract from Collier it was expressly stated that the proctors of the clergy were "summoned to parliament" and "sent up to parliament" by it, and, when assembled in the Lower House of Convocation, they were esteemed _the Spiritual Commons_ of the realm, and a constituent part of "the great Council of the nation assembled in parliament." But as mere assertions, or even uncorroborated deductions, are but of little value without facts, I must establish this much by producing authorities. The design of Edward I. for reducing the clergy to be a part of the Third Estate, by means of this præmunitory clause, is sufficiently known, as is also the fact that the clergy were unwilling to give up their own synods; and though, in obedience to the King's summons, they came to parliament from both provinces, yet shortly after they met by themselves, and constituted a body which was at once synodical and parliamentary.