hy in 1661 that the spirituality was not anxious to retain the
liberty of taxing itself apart from the laity, seeing that its ancient
liberty was likely to prove of questionable advantage to it. It voted,
however, a benevolence to the crown on the occasion of its first
assembling in 1661 after the restoration of King Charles II., and it
continued so to do until 1664, when an arrangement was made between
Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Hyde, under which the
spirituality silently waived its long-asserted right of voting its own
subsidies to the crown, and submitted itself thenceforth to be assessed
to the "aids" directly granted to the crown by parliament. An act was
accordingly passed by the parliament in the following year 1665,
entitled An act to grant a Royal Aid unto the King's Majesty, to which
aid the clergy were assessed by the commissioners named in the statute
without any objection being raised on their part or behalf,[1] there
being a proviso that in so contributing the clergy should be relieved of
the liability to pay two subsidies out of four, which had been voted by
them in the convocation of a previous year. In consequence of this
practical renunciation of their separate _status_, as regards their
liability to taxation, the clergy have assumed and enjoyed in common
with the laity the right of voting at the election of members of the
House of Commons, in virtue of their ecclesiastical freeholds.

The most important and the last work of the convocation during this
second period of its activity was the revision of the Book of Common
Prayer which was completed in the latter part of 1661.

Third period.

Claim of Lower House to sit independently.

Bangorian controversy.

Fourth period.

Fifth period.

The Revolution in 1688 is the most important epoch in the third period
of the history of the synodical proceedings of the spirituality, when
the convocation of Canterbury, having met in 1689 in pursuance of a
royal writ, obtained a licence under the great seal, to prepare certain
alterations in the liturgy and in the canons, and to deliberate on the
reformation of the ecclesiastical courts. A feeling, however, of panic
seems to have come over the Lower House, which took up a position of
violent antagonism to the Upper House. This circumstance led to the
prorogation of the convocation and to its subsequent discharge without
any practical fruit resulting from the king's licence. Ten years e