2°« S. X. Nov. 3. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



355 



present, however, what I have said will probably 

 be sufficient ; and I willingly, therefore, pass over 

 the remainder. Still, with respect to the proposed 

 appointment of an envoy from the Pope, which I 

 have just mentioned, it will not, perhaps, be much 

 out of place if I observe, by way of conclusion, 

 that, from the terms in which it is spoken of, there 

 is good reason to suspect that it was the actual, 

 if not the necessary, result of an invitation or 

 suggestion from James himself, in the message 

 conveyed by Lindsay to Rome. The reader will 

 not fail to have remarked above that the Pontiff, 

 who thinks it necessary to consult the cardinals, 

 does not consult them as to the fact of sending 

 soma one, but simply as to the quality of the person 

 to be employed. To the same effect, Lindsay him- 

 self seems to regard the appointment as a thing of 

 course. In the letter already cited, he informs the 

 King of it, as a matter that coulil not be unex- 

 pected; and in another, written only thirteen days 

 later, and addressed, like the former, to James, he 

 actually connects it with the message, and repre- 

 sents it as its natural consequence. Having said 

 that, since he wrote last, he has seen the Pope, he 

 adds, " I have had answer to that which I brought 

 here, which is, that his Holiness will send one di- 

 rectly to England, and will write," &c, (^Italy, 

 Lindsay to the King, Feb. 5, 1605). It is evi- 

 dent, therefore, that, whatever may have been the 

 message entrusted to Lindsay, it was thought to 

 require an answer. James, doubtless, meant only 

 •to cajole the Pope with "termes of civillitye;" but 

 the Pope, with more simplicity, believed him to 

 be sincere, and prepared to send his reply by a 

 special messenger. I should doubt whether the 

 reader will. discover, in this pi'oceeding, anything 

 of that offensive and "ridiculous" character which 

 has been assigned to it by Mr. Gakdi>;er. 



M. A. TiERNET. 



Arundel. 



BISHOPS AND THEIR B.\RONIES. 

 (2"'i S. X. 227.) 

 The work of Lord Chief Justice Hale referred 

 to by the Querist is a manuscript treatise on the 

 Rights of the Crown. Such a MS. is quoted in the 

 case of Sir John Shelley Sidney, entitled " Fur- 

 ther Statement," in reference to the Barony of 

 Berkeley, which was before the House of Lords 

 in 1830. In that Statement will be found some 

 remarks upon the subject of the bishops' right of 

 sitting in Parliament, in connexion with Lord 

 Chief Justice Hale's opinion, well worthy of pre- 

 servation In a column of "N. & Q." Few persons 

 are likely to possess a copy of the Case and State- 

 ments printed thirty years since, for private use 

 it may almost be said, and which is likely to be 

 altogether lost sight of when the claim of the 

 Berkeley barony shall be disposed of. 



The singular position of a bishop (of one of the 

 ancient Sees) in waiting for a seat In the House of 

 Lords may some day become a question, when it 

 Is remembered that the bishops created by King 

 Henry VIII. received a writ of summons to 

 Parliament immediately after the erection of the 

 bishoprlcks, and as, it would seem, incidental to 

 their bishoprlcks, since they held no lands per haro- 

 niam. The Statement of Sir John Shelley Sidney 

 was prepared by the late Sir Harris Nicolas, and 

 extends over thirty pages, and wherein the follow- 

 ing remarks occur in pp. 9 and 10., viz. : — 



" Chief Justice Hale, in a manuscript treatise on the 

 Jura Corona, expresses his opinion that the Bishops do 

 not hold their possessions per baroniam, but that they sit 

 in the House of Peers by custom and usage, and not as 

 Barons b3- tenure *, which tends to prove the correctness 

 of Bishop Warburton's assertion, that a seat in the House 

 of Lords is attached to each bishopric, as one of the con- 

 sequences of the ' Alliance between Church and State,' 

 and that the Prelates 'are not there in their own right 

 for their baronies, like the lay members f,' and the fol- 

 lowing facts strongly corroborate the cpinion of Chief 

 Justice Hale. 



" From the reign of Edward I. to that of Henry "VIII., 

 whenever a See became vacant the 'Custodes' of the 

 spiritualities were regularly summoned J to and sat in 

 Parlianient§ until the appointment of a new Bishop. 



" The temporalities were seized into the King's hands 

 the moment a See became vacant, and were not re- 

 granted until it was again filled. If, therefore, the right 

 to a summons to Parliament was, as has been contended, 

 attached to the temporalities alone, no one could be sum- 

 moned with reference to the bishoprick to which such 

 lands were annexed whilst they remained in the King's 

 hands ; so that if the right to sit in Parliament be de- 

 rived from any other source than usage and custom, such 

 right appears to be attached to the spir'ituaUties, and not 

 to the temporaiities : but it may be confidently presumed, 

 that the right of sitting in Parliament belongs to bishop- 

 ricks by prescription and immemorial usage, and forms 

 an integral part of the episcopal privileges. It may be 

 true that until a Bishop obtains his temporalities he 

 cannot now be summoned ; but this seems to be because 

 he is not fully possessed of the episcopal character until 

 he obtains them ; the delivery of them on the part of the 

 Crown being in fact the recognition of his dignity. To 

 complete the spiritual and political state of a Bishop, 

 three things are indispensable : Election, and consecration 

 by ecclesiastical authority, and the grant of the tempo- 

 ralities by the Crown. Until these three qualification* 

 meet, he is not bona fide a Bishop of an English See, and 

 can therefore have no claim to the civil privileges an- 

 nexed to the bishoprick. 



" King Henry VIII. erected six new Sees, and endowed 

 them with lands, none of which were granted to be holden 

 per baroniam ; nor in the letters patent creating the re- 

 spective Sees is it stated that the new Bishops shall be 

 summoned to Parliament. It appears, however, that the 

 ri<?ht to sit in the House of Lords was considered incidental 



♦ See a note to Thomas's edition of Coke, First Insti- 

 tutes, vol. i. p. .^C. 



f Warburton's Alliance between Church and Stale, ed. 

 1741, pp. 78, 79. 



J Appendix to the Reports of the Lords' Committee on 

 the Dignity of a Peer of the Realm, passim, and writs of 

 summons in the Fcedera. 



§ Rot. Pari., vol. iii. 582, 583. 



