Roman Canon, which enacted the separate treatment of clerks and laymen, was introduced into England about the end of the reign of Stephen (Stubbs). It ran as follows:

The ROMAN CANON. "Clerks shall not be unjustly seized nor detained from the ordinary, upon pain of excommunication and interdict. And their accusers also shall be excommunicated. Clerks vagi et ignoti being seized, shall be demanded by the ordinary, who, if they be amerced, shall not levy it, and so in all cases which are merely spiritual."

It was upon this point that the great dispute between Henry II. and Thomas Becket mainly arose. The Constitutions of Clarendon enact that "clerks accused of any matter, when summoned by the king's justice, shall come into his court, and there plead, so that the king's justice may see whether the matter be to be inquired into in his court or in the Church court. If it belongs to the Church court, the king's justice shall send into the Church court to see what the sentence is, and if the clerk shall be convict, the Church ought not to defend him further." It is probable that this arrangement was never carried out, and that practically all clerks, that is persons in any degree of orders, and the servants of such, were completely free of the temporal courts, until the mischief growing to a great head, it was modified by various statutes.

Statutes on this head.-By 52 Henry III. c. 27, those who bailed persons who afterwards pleaded benefit of clergy were liberated from their obligations, it having before been the practice to amerce them, just as if the bailee had filed.

This statute was in aid of the privilege. So also was 3 Edward I. c. 2, which enacted that "a clerk taken for felony shall be delivered to the ordinary, accordto the privilege of holy Church:" and 9 Edward II. cap. 16, which enacted that "if a clerk makes a confession of any crime before a temporal judge, yet, if demanded by the ordinary, he must be given up." 18 Edward III. enacts that if a clerk "holding him to his clergy" will not answer, he must be given to the spiritual court. 25 Edward III. c. 4, seems to be the first limitation; this enacts that if clerks convict of treason or felony touching other persons than the king, shall plead clergy, they must be given up. 25 Edward III. c. 5, enacts that clerks demanded by the ordinary shall not be sent to gaol on other matters,

| but shall be tried on the point at issue. The privilege of "benefit of clergy" was fully recognised by 10 Richard II. c. 1.

4 Henry IV. c. 2, confirms 25 Edward III., ordains that clergy, even when indicted for open violence or highway robbery, shall be delivered to the ordinaries without delay. As women could not plead "clergy," Acts were passed to ordain that they should not suffer death for matters wherein men might plead clergy. The first real limitation to this astounding privilege was made by 4 Henry VII. cap. 10.

This statute recites that persons upon trust of the privilege of the Church have been more bold to commit murder, robbery, theft, etc. It is therefore ordained that they shall have the privilege of clergy but once if within minor orders, and that they shall be marked M if murderers, T if thieves, but if the culprit pleads higher orders, he shall be obliged to prove his orders, and if not clergy not to be allowed. By the 12 Henry VII. c. 7, those in minor orders were not allowed clergy for murdering or attempting to murder the king. 4 Henry VIII. c. 7, extends this to all murderers, sacrilegious persons, robbers with violence. These, except in higher orders, were not allowed clergy. This statute excited great opposition. It was only temporary. 23 Henry VIII. c. 1, enacts that persons in holy orders, convict for petit treason, murder, or felony, and delivered to the ordinaries, shall not be admitted to purgation, but kept continually in prison (except they find two sufficient sureties). The ordinary may degrade a clerk convict, and send him to the justices of King's Bench, who then may proceed against him as if he were no clerk. 28 Henry VIII. c. 1, abjurers not to have clergy, even if within holy orders. 1 Edward VI. c. 12, Lords of Parliament to be allowed to plead clergy, "even if they cannot read." 1 Edward VI. cap. 13, instead of making purgation, the clerk convict may be kept for a certain period as a slave. It was not till quite modern times that the last vestiges of the privi lege of "benefit of clergy" passed away.

(C) HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY.

WILLIAM I. undoubtedly exercised a supremacy "in all causes and over all persons, ecclesiastical as well as civil.” He would have no pope acknowleged within his dominions without his con

sent; no bulls were allowed to have force till he had approved them. He would not allow the decrees of a national council to run without his warrant; nor any officer of his to be tried by a church court withcut his permission. (Eadmer, p. 6.) Thus he exercised a supreme regulatory power over the spiritual jurisdiction, while at the same time he caused it to be carefully separated from the secular. Henry II. had the royal supremacy in causes ecclesiastical distinctly marked when it was ordained in the Constitutions of Clarendon that appeal lay on failure of justice by the archbishop to the king, and no further appeal was to be made without the king's consent. By the statute of Provisors (25 Edward III. s. 4), the seigniory of bishoprics and benefices was taken from the pope and conferred upon the king, the rights of patrons being preserved. By the 27 Edward III. c. 1, appeals to Rome from the king's courts were forbidden, such appeals being "to the prejudice and disherison of the king." By the 13 Richard II. c. 2, any introduction of papal bulls or sentences was made highly penal. Parliament declared, in the form of a petition to the king, that "the crown of England, which hath been so free at all times that it has been in subjection to no realm, but immediately subject to God and no other, ought not in anything touching the regality to be sub

mitted to the Bishop of Rome, nor the laws of this realm by him frustrated and defeated at his will, to the perpetual destruction of the king and his sovereignty." Then followed the famous statute of Præmunire (16 Richard II.), which is interpreted by Sir E. Coke to make penal all applications to a foreign jurisdiction either in the court of Rome or elsewhere (i.e. to the ecclesiastical courts of the realm), in prejudice of the king's crown and dignity. This enabled the judges very much to control the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and to assert the king's prerogative over spiritual causes; so that whenever there was a danger of the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions coming into collision, the former had to give way. Long before the Reformation the excommunications of the pope in this realm were illegal (Brooke's Privy Council Judgments, Introduction). The king might take away jurisdiction from an ordinary, or grant it to him. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that the royal supremacy in causes ecclesiastical is an ancient right of the crown, that it was not a new claim set up by Henry VIII., but that "the principles which nourished and sustained it were firmly planted in the roots of the English constitution, which, itself slowly built up, was but a reflex of the character and genius of the people." | -(Brooke.)