8. STUBBS: THE CANON LAW 277 out any form of election ; they were as a matter of fact appointed during good behaviour ; and their jurisdiction was henceforth to be exercised in the king's name. . In him all ecclesiastical authority was vested, they were to be his minis- ters, their writs were to be issued in his name, their seals were to bear the royal arms ; and it was only to such of them as he pleased that even such authority was to be intrusted. It was proposed, though not passed, that a Court of Chancery should be erected for ecclesiastical causes. The revision of the canon law was to be urged on, and the Uni- versities were to be further purged from the old leaven. All this was done: in vain the Protestant bishops pleaded in the House of Lords that their position was intolerable and their dignity a mere mockery, that the moral discipline of clergy and people was entirely broken down ; no act for rehabil- itating them was got through parliament ; the dominant interests were opposed to it. The injunctions sent to the Universities prescribed some renewal of studies ; the poor canonists of course were left out in the cold, although not treated as if they were illegal or irregular : the civilians were authorised to read the Institutes, and the D. C. L., when he had reached that dignity, was exhorted to devote himself more zealously to the study of the king's laws, both temporal and ecclesiastical. And work was to be found for him : bills were introduced to lodge ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the hands of students of the Universities, who were admitted by the archbishop. By these, however, all special privileges of the advocates were endangered and the bills dropped after passing most stages : four bills on this point were before the parliament of 1550. But again the revision of the canons was dragging behind. The king's power of nominating revisers was asserted by an act of 1550 to last for three years, and an abortive attempt was made in the session of 1552 t6 renew or enlarge it ; but whether it was that Cran- mer found it impossible to obtain skilled assistants, or that the division of parties prevented a joint effort, it was not until near the end of the reign that the project was carried on: in 1551 and 1552 Edward issued two commissions of thirty-two, composed of equal numbers of bishops, divines,
