"And will you preserve unto _the bishops and clergy of the realm_, and to the churches committed to them, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them?" This in an older oath ran thus: "Et quil gardera le peas de seynt Eglise _et al clergie_ et al people de bon accorde." From these quotations it does not seem very faulty to infer, that the clergy as represented by Convocation are the second Estate of the realm; and are not, as represented by "the Lords Spiritual," the first, which is the Estate of the nobility represented by the Peers. Against this CANON. EBOR.'S arguments are two: first, "that the phrase 'assembled in Parliament' has no application to the Convocation;" and next, that the "Convocation does not sit at Westminster." With regard to the first, I have to say that it was somewhat late in our history that the point was settled that Convocation was not a part of Parliament. In Mr. Palin's recently published _History of the Church of England_, ch. x. p. 242., I read, with respect to the dissolution of the Convocation of 1701,-- "With the presentation of this document the Convocation dispersed, both the King and the Prolocutor being now dead; and in the act that empowered the Parliament to sit after the king's death, no provision was made to continue the Convocation. The Earl of Rochester moved, in the House of Lords, that it might be considered, _whether the Convocation was not a part of the Parliament, and whether it was not continued in consequence of the act that continued the Parliament_. But that was soon let fall; for the judges were all of opinion that it was dissolved by the king's death." In _A Reconciling Letter, &c._, a pamphlet published in 1702: "Pray inform me to which notion I may subscribe; whether to the Convocation being a Parliamentary body, and _part of Parliament_, as Dr. A. has made it? Or to the Convocation having a Parliamentary relation, and such an origin and alliance," &c. On going back to an earlier date:--In Statutis 21 Richard II. c. 2., and 21 Richard II. c. 12. the preambles state that-- "These statutes were made by the assent _of the procurators of the clergy, as well as_ of other constituent members _of parliament_." And we know that the _Procuratores Cleri_ occasionally sat in parliament in the Lower House, as the Judges do now in the Upper: in a treatise quoted by Coke (_De modo tenendi Parliamentum_)-- "It appeareth that the proctors of the clergy should appear, 'cum præsentia eorum sit necessaria' (which proveth they were voiceless assistants only), and having no voices, and so many learned bishops having voices, their presence is not now holden necessary."--4 Inst. 5. Perhaps they were not altogether voiceless, for we find that on Nov. 22, 1547, a petition was presented by the Lower House of Convocation to the Upper, the second clause of which was--