metimes ad faciendum et
consentiendum, sometimes only ad consentiendum; which, from the fifth of
Richard II., has been the term invariably adopted.[330] Now, as it is
usual to infer from the same words, when introduced into the writs for
election of the commons, that they possessed an enacting power, implied
in the words ad faciendum, or at least to deduce the necessity of their
assent from the words ad consentiendum, it should seem to follow that
the clergy were invested, as a branch of the parliament, with rights no
less extensive. It is to be considered how we can reconcile these
apparent attributes of political power with the unquestionable facts
that almost all laws, even while they continued to attend, were passed
without their concurrence, and that, after some time, they ceased
altogether to comply with the writ.[331]

The solution of this difficulty can only be found in that estrangement
from the common law and the temporal courts which the clergy throughout
Europe were disposed to effect. In this country their ambition defeated
its own ends; and while they endeavoured by privileges and immunities to
separate themselves from the people, they did not perceive that the line
of demarcation thus strongly traced would cut them off from the sympathy
of common interests. Everything which they could call of ecclesiastical
cognizance was drawn into their own courts; while the administration of
what they contemned as a barbarous system, the temporal law of the
land, fell into the hands of lay judges. But these were men not less
subtle, not less ambitious, not less attached to their profession than
themselves; and wielding, as they did in the courts of Westminster, the
delegated sceptre of judicial sovereignty, they soon began to control
the spiritual jurisdiction, and to establish the inherent supremacy of
the common law. From this time an inveterate animosity subsisted between
the two courts, the vestiges of which have only been effaced by the
liberal wisdom of modern ages. The general love of the common law,
however, with the great weight of its professors in the king's council
and in parliament, kept the clergy in surprising subjection. None of our
kings after Henry III. were bigots; and the constant tone of the commons
serves to show that the English nation was thoroughly averse to
ecclesiastical influence, whether of their own church or the see of
Rome.

It was natural, therefore, to withstand the interference of th