348 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



letter to my Lord Treasurer, dated June 19, 

 1703, he has these words: — '* I was in hopes, 

 before this time, to have heard of a privy seal 

 for the pardoning all the arrears of tenths due 

 from livings not above 30/. per annum. Good 

 my Lord, give me leave to put you in mind of 

 this." He pressed this matter both to the Queen 

 and Lord Treasurer with some warmth. And 

 no doubt the indigent clergy were exceedingly 

 obliged to him for it. 



Another ecclesiastical affair, and of public 

 concern, upon which he was consulted and 

 employed, was the healing up the divisions 

 between the upper and lower House of Con- 

 vocation for the province of Canterbury. In 

 1700 and the two following years, differences 

 and disputes about convocatmial rights ami pro- 

 ceedings had been carried on with some ve- 

 hemence. Several papers, pro and con, had 

 been published, and several able and great men 

 had been concerned on both sides. Some as- 

 serting the right of the Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, with his suffragans, to continue or pro- 

 rogue the whole Convocation ; others maintain- 

 ing the liberty of the lower clergy, as having 

 a right to convene and to dispatch, or rather 

 prepare matters in the intermediate days of 

 prorogations; and others challenging to them 

 an independent power of sitting, and rising. 



