With the exception of the abortive attempt in 1689, convocation, though regularly assembling with every parliament, had literally done nothing for the last nine and thirty years. Now, in 1701, it met to transact business. First of all, on February 10th, those ecclesiastical legislators assembled in St Paul’s Cathedral, where a sermon was preached by Dr Haley, Dean of Chichester. The members of the Lower House then proceeded to the Chapter House, and elected Dr Hooper, Dean of Canterbury, their prolocutor. “A man of learning,” says Burnet, “of good conduct, but reserved, crafty, and ambitious.” They then adopted certain resolutions as a preparation for the battle which they knew was coming. 1. That they had a right to sit whenever parliament sat, and that they could not be legally prorogued but when parliament was prorogued. 2. That they had no need of licence to enter upon debates, and to prepare matters. 3. That as parliament could pass no act without the royal assent, so convocation could neither enact nor publish a canon without the royal licence. This soon brought them into conflict with their brethren of the Upper House. On February 25th, an order was brought to them, signed by the archbishop, proroguing both houses in the usual form. At the time, the Lower House was holding its session in the chapel of Henry VIII., and the session was continued in defiance of the archbishop’s mandate, until, after a short debate, they adjourned themselves. Then followed a private squabble between the archbishop and the prolocutor, respecting the prerogatives of the two houses. This lasted until the 6th of March, when the two houses met, and agreed upon the form of an address to the king, thanking him for his pious regard for the reformed churches in general, and expressing their determination to maintain the royal supremacy, and the articles and canons of the Church. Their next session was a fortnight later, on March 20th, when the prolocutor of the Lower House brought up a representation of the “pernicious, dangerous, and scandalous” doctrines contained in Toland’s “Christianity not Mysterious,” and requested the bishops to agree to their resolutions, and to censure the book. This was another cause of jangling. Burnet says:—“This struck directly at Episcopal authority. It seemed strange to see men who had so long asserted the divine right of Episcopacy, and that presbyters were only their assistants and council, now assume to themselves the most important act of church government, the judging in points of doctrine.”