"The next in order are the Spiritual lords. These consist of two archbishops and twenty-four bishops; and at the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. consisted likewise of twenty-six mitred abbots, and two priors: a very considerable body, and in those times equal in number to the temporal nobility. All these hold, or are supposed to hold, _certain ancient baronies_, under the king: for William the Conqueror thought proper to change the spiritual tenure of frank-almoign, or free alms, under which the bishops held their lands during the Saxon government, into feodal or Norman tenure _by barony_; which subjected their estates to all civil charges and assessments from which they were before exempt: and in right of succession to those baronies, which were unalienable from their respective dignities, the bishops and abbots were allowed their seats in the House of Lords." Sir Matthew Hale divides the king's extraordinary councils into two kinds: 1. Secular or temporal councils; 2. Ecclesiastical or spiritual: the king's extraordinary secular councils being the Houses of the Peers and of the Commons; and the extraordinary ecclesiastical, the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation. Some illustration of this may be perhaps found in the following extract from an appendix to _A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Lower House of Convocation_, published by T. Bennet, London, 1701, in which _Prelates_ are Spiritual Lords, whether Bishops or Abbots; and the phrase "full Parliament" seems equivalent to the ones used in the Gunpowder Treason Service:-- "When the several Estates were assembled in _full Parliament_, and received the King's commands concerning the business which they were to consider, and were adjourned by him to another day of _full Parliament_, in which they were to meet, and give their answer: the Clergy, and Lords, and Commons consulted in the mean time separately, ... Instances of this are not necessary, but one may be seen among the Records in the appendix to a late book call'd _Essays concerning the Balance of Power_, &c., and 'tis this: 6 Edw. III. Part 3. N. 1., on Tuesday in Full Parliament the King charged the Prelates, Earls, Barons, and other Great Men, and the Knights of the Shires, and the Commons, that having regard to the honor and profit of his Realm, they should give him their counsel. The which Prelates with the Clergy by themselves, and the Earls and Barons by themselves, and the knights and others of the counties and the Commons by themselves, treated and consulted till Friday next, the day assigned for the next session, and there _in full Parliament_, each by themselves and afterward all in common, answered." The formation and development of Convocation, at least that of Canterbury, presents a great analogy to the English Parliament; as that of York does to the Scottish Parliament.