Feb. 7. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



131 



It is true, as Mr. Praseb observes, that the 

 majority of the Upper House of Parliament binds 

 the Clergy though all the Bishops should be dis- 

 sentient, as in Queen Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity. 

 This is the result of the Spiritual Estate voting in 

 the same chamber with the Nobility ; and to avoid 

 such a result the Commons very early demanded 

 a chamber to themselves. The Spiritualty is thus 

 yet further reduced under the power of the Tem- 

 poralty ; for " the authority of Parliament " (as 

 Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity words it) is and 

 must be supreme, however defective its repre- 

 sentative constitution. It were certainly to be 

 -wished that those liberal reformers who were so 

 shocked at burgage tenures and rotten boroughs, 

 would extend their compassion to the disfranchised 

 clergy, some five or six hundred of whom are 

 *' represented," without their consent or opinion 

 asked, by a prelate appointed by the Crown. 



On the whole, the Convocation is " the true 

 Church of England by representation" (Canon 139) 

 in such matters as belong to the Church as dis- 

 tinguished from the State; but in Parliament, 

 which is the State, the Spiritualty is represented 

 by the Bishops alone. 



I am astonished that Mb. Fbaseb should stumble 

 at my remark, that the Three Estates still assemble 

 in common for the final passing of every act. I 

 had thought that the ceremony of giving the royal 

 assent in full Parliament to bills previously de- 

 liberated upon in the two Houses apart, had been 

 sufficiently well known. Canon Ebor. 



P. S. — Since writing the above I have lighted 

 upon the following authorities, confirming the po- 

 sition that the Spiritual Estate is represented in 

 Parliament by the Bishops, and also that it is 

 ranked as the " First Estate of the Realm." Can 

 Mr. Eraser adduce any authority whatever fur 

 applying that designation to the Clergy in Convo- 

 cation ? 



I. In An Account of the Ceremonies observed at 

 the Coronation of George III. (London, Kearsley, 

 1791, 4to.), I read that immediately after the en- 

 thronement — 



" Tlie bishops performed their homage, and then the 

 temporal lords, first H. 11. H. the Duke of York, and 

 H. 11. H. the Duke of Cumberland, each for himself;" — 



the Prelates thus taking precedence even of the 

 blood royal. The same fact is distinctly stated 

 in the accounts appended of the coronations of 

 James II., William and Mary (when the Bishops 

 •did homage before Prince George) ; and I pre- 

 sume that this is the regular order in which the 

 Estates of the Realm do homage to the Sovereign 

 upon that most solemn occasion. 



II. When the royal assent is given to any act of 

 grace (which emanates from the Crown in the first 

 instance), the form is for the clerk of parliament 

 to acknowledge the royal favour in these words : 



III. " Leg prelats, seigneurs, et commons, en ce present 

 parliament assembles au nom de tout vous autre sub- 

 jects remercient tres humblement votre Majeste, et 

 prient a Dieu vous donner en sante bonne vie et 

 longue." 



" Strictly speaking, the * Three Estates of the Realm* 

 consist of, 1st, the Lords Spiritual; 2nd, the Lords 

 Temporal ; 3rd, the Commons. Parliament fully as- 

 sembled consists of the King, with the two estates of 

 the Peerage sitting in one house, and the Commons by 

 their representatives standing below the bar." — Dodd's 

 Manual of Dignities, 8^c., tit. " Parliament," p. 266. 



I-EGEND or ST. KENELM IN CLENT COU BACHE. 



(Vol. v., p. 79.) 



Your correspondent will find the ample story in 

 the Golden Legend. It is related more succinctly 

 by Roger of Wendover, who has been followed by 

 later chroniclers. In the legend, as related by 

 Roger of Wendover, the murder of Kenelra is said 

 to have been miraculously notified at Rome by a 

 white dove alighting on the altar of St. Peter's 

 church, bearing a scroll in her bill, which she let 

 fall. The scroll contained, among other things, 

 the following lines : 



" In Clente cou bache 

 Kenelm kine-bearn, 

 Lith under thorne 

 Havedes bereaved." 



" Qui Latine sonat (says the Chronicler) in pastum 

 vaccarum Kenelmius regis filius jacet sub spina capite 

 privatus." — MS. Douce, fo. 66. h. 



And afterwards he says : 



" De hujus quoque sancte martyris quidam sic ait : ", 

 In Clent, sub spina, jacet in convalle bovina, 

 Vertice privatus, Kenelraus rege creatus." 



" Cou bache" has been erroneously printed " cou 

 hathe ; " and travestied sometimes into coubage. 



Clent is the name of the place, a wood accord- 

 ing to the Golden Legend. Bach, or Bache, is a 

 word that had long escaped the glossarists, with 

 the exception of Dr. Whitaker, who says it is " a 

 Mereno-Saxon word, signifying a bottom, and that 

 it enters into the composition of several local 

 names in the midland counties." 



The passage in Piers Ploughman, upon which 

 this is a gloss, occurs at p. 119. of Whitaker's 

 edition : 



"Ac ther was weye non so wys (that the way thider 

 couthe 

 Bote blostred forth as bestes) over baches and huUes." 



The word occurs several times in Layamon, and 

 on two occasions the later text reads slade ; in one 

 passage we have it thus : 



«' Of dalen and of d—zen 

 And oib4BCcheH deopen."' 



