to the Church itself their precipitation is due; for had they not, at
the outset of the reign, suggested large changes in the liturgy
suspicions then aroused might well have slumbered. As it was, the
question of the royal supremacy immediately came into view and the
clergy spared no effort to meet the issue so raised. And this they felt
the more bitterly because the upper house of Convocation, two-thirds of
which were William's nominees, naturally inclined to his side. Both
under William and Anne the dispute continued, and the lower clergy
shrank from no opportunity of conflict. They fought the king, the
archbishop, the upper house. They attacked the writings of Toland and
Burnet, the latter's book since recognized as one of the great treasures
of Anglican literature. In the main, of course, the struggle was part of
the perennial conflict between High Church doctrine and
latitudinarianism. But that was only a fragment of the issue. What
really was in question was the nature of the State's power over the
Church. That could be left unanswered so long, as with James I and
Charles, the two powers had but a single thought. The situation changed
only when State and Church had different policies to fulfil and
different means for their attainment.

The controversy had begun on the threshold of William's accession; but
its real commencement dates from 1697. In that year was published the
_Letter to a Convocation Man_, probably written by Sir Bartholomew
Shower, an able if unscrupulous Jacobite lawyer, which maliciously,
though with abounding skill, raised every question that peaceful
churchmen must have been anxious to avoid. The _Letter_ pointed out the
growth of infidelity and the increasing suspicion that the Church was
becoming tainted with Socinian doctrine. Only the assembly of
Convocation could arrest these evils. The author did not deny that the
king's assent was necessary to its summons. But he argued that once the
Convocation had met, it could, like Parliament, debate all questions
relevant to its purpose. "The one of these courts," said Shower, "is of
the same power and use with regard to the Church as the other is in
respect to the State," and he insisted that the writ of summons could
not at any point confine debate. And since the Convocation was an
ecclesiastical Parliament, it followed that it could legislate and thus
make any canons "provided they do not impugn common law, statutes,
customs or prerogative." "To c