Transcribed from the 1851 Joseph Masters edition by DavidPrice,
A SECOND LETTER
TO
THE BISHOP OF EXETER.
BY A LAYMAN
FOR PRIVATECIRCULATION ONLY.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY
JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET.
MDCCCLI.
p. 3ALETTER.
My Dear Lord,
I TRUST I can now satisfy youthat we have both been labouring under a great mistake for sometime, and that after all no ecclesiastical rule can properly besaid to have been violated by the judgment of the Privy Councilin the Gorham Case, but that it is quite right that the Crownshould have the jurisdiction in such a case which they haveactually exercised.
The question then is this, What is the real nature of the suitcalled Duplex Querela? For a suit it is no doubt, (though Ihad at one time thought otherwise) and one too in theArchbishop’s Court. You will find from our olderauthorities that the Archbishops of Canterbury in former timesused to claim the right of interfering in their comprovincialdioceses per simplicem querelam, i.e. as I believe, of acting, soto speak, in all cases as joint ordinary with each Bishopthroughout their province. This claim of jurisdiction isspecially mentioned and discussed in Gibson’s Codex. This right, however, was disputed and given up, and thejurisdiction was ultimately confined to those cases alone inwhich, after an application to the Comprovincial p. 4Bishop, he hadheard the Clerk and decided wrongly against him. This rightthe injured Clerk pursued by the process called the DuplexQuerela, a process there is some reason to believe peculiar tothe province of Canterbury, and arising from the legatinejurisdiction of that See,—as it is well known that theArchbishops of Canterbury anciently claimed to be legati nati ofthe Pope. [4] But whether this be so or not, itis clear that either on this ground or as metropolitans, theyhave always exercised this jurisdiction within theirprovince. I cannot find any instance of the Archbishop ofYork doing this, which inclines me to this hypothesis of thelegatine jurisdiction. If this be the nature of the DuplexQuerela it is manifest that it consists really of two partswholly separate and distinct from each other; one, a suit in theArchbishop’s Court for the purpose of determining whetherthe Archbishop has in the particular case, this jurisdiction: andthis depends on the question whether the Bishop has committed anerror;—and secondly, a claim by the Clerk that if theArchbishop has jurisdiction he shall act or proceed to institutethe Clerk as upon a presentation made to himself in his owndiocese.
Now the suit, and of course the Appeal to the Privy Council,is, properly speaking, confined to the first branch alone. If the Archbishop decides against the Bishop, the latter thenappeals to the p.5Crown to prevent the Archbishop from improperlyinfringing on his Diocesan