d the conditions of the retiring
pensions asked were so moderate and equitable, that Lord Palmerston had
no hesitation in sanctioning the introduction of a bill to give effect
to the arrangement proposed.

It did not pass without vigorous resistance from more than one quarter.
The Bishop of Exeter complained of it as incompatible with the great
Church principle, that a bishop could only resign his office to the
archbishop of his province; others opposed it as a violation of the
common law, which forbids any bargain being made for the resignation of
an office; while some, referring to the prohibition of simony (a word,
perhaps, as much misunderstood and as often misapplied as any in the
language), denounced the arrangement that the retiring prelates were to
have pensions as simoniacal.[295] The most reasonable objection made to
the proceeding was, that such exceptional legislation to meet an
isolated case tended to establish a dangerous precedent, and that, as
there were other men of great age on the bench, it would be better to
effect the end now aimed at by a large general measure providing means
for the retirement of all clergymen, those of inferior rank as well as
bishops, whom age or infirmity might incapacitate. But the general
feeling was against delay. The bill passed, and served in some degree as
a model for that general measure which was soon afterward introduced,
and which, as was suggested on this occasion, provided for an
arrangement similar in principle being carried out whenever a priest
holding any kind of ecclesiastical preferment should become disabled for
the performance of its duties.

There can be no doubt that such legislation was absolutely necessary in
the interests of the Church, taking that expression to include, not the
clergy alone, but the whole congregation of Churchmen. But it introduced
a remarkable change into the system of ecclesiastical peerages, and, so
far, into the constitution of the House of Lords. What was resigned by
the two prelates was not the peerage (they had still the right to be
styled "my lord"), but the seat in the House of Lords, which was a part,
and which had hitherto been regarded as an inseparable part of it, or,
at least (as it should, perhaps, rather be said, since the recent
regulation that the junior bishop should not have a seat was a clear
violation of that principle), which hitherto no one had been able to
dissociate from the peerage after it had been once en