Regulations of the sta

tute of the

25th of

Henry VIII. relative to episcopal ap

land.

took no notice or heed. They afterwards burned the images, shrines, and relics, of the saints of Ireland and England; they likewise burned the celebrated image of [the B. V.] Mary at Trim, which used to perform wonders and miracles, which used to heal the blind, the deaf, and the crippled, and persons affected with all kinds of diseases, and they also burned the staff of Jesus which was in Dublin, performing miracles, from the time of St. Patrick down to that time, and had been in the hands of Christ while he was among men. They also appointed archbishops and suffragan bishops for themselves; and though great was the persecution of the Roman emperors against the Church, scarcely had there ever come so great a persecution from Rome as this; so that it is impossible to narrate or tell its description, unless it should be narrated by one who saw it." p. 1449.

By the (English) Act of the 25th of Henry VIII., entitled "An Act for the non-payment of First Fruits to the Bishop of Rome," power was given to the Crown, on a bishopric falling pointments, vacant, to nominate to the dean and chapter of &c. in Eng- the see, a person whom they were bound, under the severest penalties, (imprisonment for life, &c.) to elect for bishop, and whom the archbishop or metropolitan of the province was bound, under like penalties, to "confirm, invest, and consecrate with all due circumstances." At the "confirming," all persons who might be aware of any just ground or impediment against proceed

i. e. " without authority from the pope."-O'Donovan in loc.

ing with the consecration of the prelate elect, were publicly cited to come forward and state their objections: and such objections had been often made and allowed. Without this process, or on the objections having been admitted and established, the election was null and void. And several instances of archbishops refusing to confirm (previously to the statute of Henry above mentioned) are to be met with in Wharton's "Anglia Sacra ;" such refusals being grounded on objections made in regular form, according to the mode of citation and objection which has been in practice in England from the earliest period.

VIII.'s view

from the

tian Man."

How far Henry VIII. designed to continue to Henry the Church the use of a liberty which afforded of the case legal opportunity of excluding from the highest illustrated ecclesiastical position men of unsound faith, "Institution scandalous ignorance and incompetence, or im- of a Chrismoral character, may be collected from the following passage in "The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man," a work drawn up by Archbishop Cranmer, and of which the original, believed to be in his own handwriting, and amended in some places by the hands of King Henry VIII. himself, (to whom it was submitted for approval,) is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In this work, published in 1536, four years after the statute of

Doctrine of this work relative to ecclesiastical patro

nage.

Special mention of the case of episcopal appointments.

the 25th of Henry VIII., and with the sanction of that monarch, the duties and privileges of the different parties concerned in the appointments to Church benefices are thus described:*

"The second point, wherein consisteth the jurisdiction committed unto Priests and Bishops, by the authority of God's law, is to approve and admit such persons, as (being nominated elected and presented unto them, to exercise the office and room of preaching the Gospel, and of ministering the sacraments, and to have the cure of jurisdiction over these certain people within this parish, or within this dio. cese) shall be thought unto them meet and worthy to exercise the same; and to reject and repel from the said room such AS THEY SHALL JUDGE to be unmeet therefore. And in this part we must know and understand, that the said presentation and nomination is of man's ordinance, and appertaineth unto the founders and patrons, or other persons, according to the laws and ordinances of men provided for the same. As, for an example, within this realm the presentation and nomination of the Bishoprics appertaineth unto the Kings of this realm; and of other lesser cures and personages some unto the King's Highness, some unto other noble men, some unto Bishops, and some unto other persons, whom we call patrons of the benefices, according as it is provided by the order of the laws and ordinances of this realm. And unto the Priests and Bishops belongeth, by the authority of the Gospel, to approve and confirm the person which shall be by the King's Highness or other patrons, so nominated, elected, and presented unto them to have the cure of these certain people, within this certain parish or diocese, OR ELSE TO REJECT HIM, as was said before, from the same, for his demerits or unworthiness."

See the Guardian, Feb. 9 and 16, 1848.

of the sta

Henry by

England.

In the late case, however, of the famous Recent in(Hampden) controversy relative to the see of terpretation Hereford, (in 1848,) it was set forth as the opi- tute of nion of the crown lawyers of England, that the the crown archbishop of a province has no power to reject, lawyers of in any case, the person presented to him for consecration, whatever his character, or the nature of the evidence adducible concerning it. The words of the Attorney-General of England on that occasion are worthy the attention of churchmen. "I will take," said he, "the case of a man not suspected merely, but actually convicted of some atrocious crime, being presented by the crown to a Bishopric, and elected by the Dean and Chapter, has the Archbishop any right to reject him? UNDOUBTEDLY NOT. say he has no choice; he must obey the Act of Parliament." And on this opinion the Court of Queen's Bench practically acted in the case then before them: for although of the four judges on the bench, two were of an opposite opinion, and ruled that the archbishop had a judicial power to hear and pronounce upon objections, yet by the equal division of the members of the court, the mandamus petitioned for on that occasion, (and which would have given liberty for objections to be received and inquired into, before consecration,) was, according to the rule of law in such cases, refused. Meanwhile,

I

Statement of Mr. Justice Cole

ridge in his

judgment on the

Hampden

case.

the general question, as to whether the law of England be, that objectors shall be heard, or not, remains undecided, as before it was brought into the court, and the minister of the crown, if he please to appoint to an episcopal see, one holding all Roman, or all Socinian, doctrine, may still do so without any member of the Church having an understood and established right of stating and proving his objections, in legal form, to the consecration of such an individual.

The following passage from the judgment of Mr. Justice Coleridge, one of the two judges favourable to the hearing and examining into objections, in the case aforesaid, contains at the close an allusion to the circumstances of the Church of Ireland in relation to episcopal appointments, which will probably prove not uninteresting to those who feel anxious for her welfare and reputation. The case of Ireland, where there is not retained even the form or shadow of capitular election, or "confirmation" of bishops, previously to their consecration, (the bishoprics being donative here by letters patent,) had been adduced in support of the assertion, that the crown did not contemplate permitting the rejection of any candidate nominated by its authority for consecration to the episcopal office. Referring to the phrase,