separate body they should continue—or, rather, a disembodied ghost. They were not permitted to fall back upon privileges which they had voluntarily abandoned;[1] the Lords and Commons continued to do their work for them; and, amongst other things discussed, was a question in which, if in any, they might in reason expect to have been consulted. Dec. 20.The Lower House, on the 20th of December, sent up a bill 'that lay and married men might be priests and have benefices.'[2] Consenting reluctantly to innovation where custom and prejudice had so strong a hold, it would seem that the first measure of relief which they contemplated was a compromise. Laymen having wives already might be ordained; those who were ordained while unmarried, would still remain single. Dec. 21.The bill, however, was unsatisfactory. In the Lords it was read once, on the 21 st December: Parliament was prorogued a few days after, and it was dropped.
Two other measures which were passed in this session require attention. The vagrancy laws of the late reign were said to have failed from over-severity. Al-
- ↑ Petitions of the Lower House of Convocation to the Archbishop of Canterbury: Burnet's Collectanea, pp. 264, 265.
- ↑ Lords Journals, December 20, 1547. One could wish that some draught of this bill had survived. It is difficult to make out the character of it from so brief a description. From the entries in the journals in the following session, however, it is plain that the question was much debated, that the measure of relief went through many forms before it was passed; and as the first form in which it was then brought up in the House of Commons—that laymen having wives may be priests, and have benefices—is open to no misconstruction, I conclude that the original bill was of the same kind.
