Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/902

he also granted, that all the Members of that body should enjoy their several possessions as so assigned, separately to them and their successors, for ever; reserving nevertheless a power to the Dean and Chapter, to appoint what portion each Member, as well Prebendaries as others, should have of their possessions. And granted, that the Dean and Chapter and their successors, upon any vacancy of Prebendary or Vicar-choral, should choose another, and put him into the real possession of the plane, without any application to the King, his heirs or successors, or to the Archbishop of Dublin, or his successors, or any other person whatsoever, for their licence or consent; saving to the King, his heirs and successors, the nomination and donation of the Dean, the Precentor, the Chancellor and the Treasurer, and their successors, on any vacancy. That by virtue of these grants, the said Dean and Chapter have hitherto continued a corporation, and exercised the authorities granted then, without the intermeddling of any Archbishop of Dublin, for the time being.—That the Dean and Chapter chose the plaintiff Prebendary of the prebend of St. John, when vacant, and put him into the actual possession thereof, by virtue of the said letters patent, whereby he became seised in fee of the rectory of St. John, in right of his said prebend.—That all pleas touching freeholds belong to the Queen and her crown, and not to the spiritual court; nevertheless, the Archbishop had sued the plaintiff in the spiritual court, as Prebendary or Incumbent of the said church of St. John, under pretence of contempt, for not appearing at the Archbishop's ordinary visitation; and although the plaintiff offered to plead all the said matters, and to prove the same, yet the Archbishop refused to admit him so to do, and suspended him ab officio et beneficio, in the said church of St. John, whereby he was deprived of his freehold.

To this declaration, the defendant, protestando that King Henry VIII. was not seised of the said priory, or of the lands and hereditaments thereunto belonging, as in the declaration was sup-[201]-posed; pleaded, that the said priory was an ancient priory, time out of mind, in which priory the Canons of the order of St. Victor, and of the regulation of St. Austin, were to do divine service under one canonical Prior; and which Prior and Canons, from the time aforesaid, were the Chapter of the Archbishops of Dublin, for the time being.—That the rectory and church of St. John in Dublin was time out of mind an ancient rectory, with cure of souls, in the diocese of Dublin; that the Archbishop of Dublin was. time out of mind, an ancient archbishopric; and that the defendant, and all his predecessors, Archbishops of Dublin, time out of mind, by ordinary jurisdiction which they had exercised, did, for all the time aforesaid, visit the said rectory of St. John, and the Incumbent thereof, actually having the cure of souls in the said parish of St. John, as often as there was need in St. Patrick's Close, viz. in the cathedral church of St. Patrick, Dublin, within the diocese of Dublin.—That in the letters patent granted by King Henry VIII. the King did will and declare, that the said cathedral church should be the archiepiscopal seat of Dublin, as it before was and used to be, prohibiting, nevertheless, the then Archbishop of Dublin and his successors, from exercising any other jurisdiction or authority, than the same Archbishop formerly used to exercise there, whilst it was a priory.—That the rectory or church of St. John aforesaid, was long before, and at the time of making the said letters patent of King Henry VIII. appropriated to the said priory.—That by an act of parliament made at Limerick, the 15th of February, 33 Henry VIII. intituled, An act for the suppression of Kilmainham, and other religious houses, it was, inter alia, enacted, that such of the priories and religious houses, as before the dissolution were exempt from the visitations, and all other jurisdictions of the ordinaries of the respective dioceses in which they were situate, should for the future be within the jurisdiction and visitation of the Ordinaries of the dioceses within which they were situate, the said statute, or any other exemption, liberty, or jurisdiction to the contrary notwithstanding.—That the said priory and rectory, time out of mind, were within the diocese of the Archbishops of Dublin; and that they, time out of mind, used to visit at St. Patrick's Close within the diocese of Dublin, the said priory, until the time of the making the said letters patent of King Henry VIII. and also the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral church of St. Trinity, Dublin, continually after the making of those letters patent, and likewise the said rectory and incumbent thereof, having actually cure of souls in the said parish of St. John.—That the said defendant, being Archbishop of Dublin, did, on the 26th of March 1707, at St. Patrick's Close aforesaid, decree to hold a synod and visitation ordinary,