All twenty-four English and Welsh bishops and the archbishops of Canterbury and York were entitled to sit in the Lords. This appendix lists the sixty-five clerics who sat there for the period 1661 to 1681. The bishops were an important element in the chamber, since they comprised one-sixth of the membership and therefore could determine the outcome of divisions. Their attendance record was better than that of the peers, averaging 50 per cent for this period as compared with 41 per cent for the peers. They were instructed to attend by the archbishop of Canterbury or the bishop of London in order to defend the interests of the Church in parliament.

However, they were not a homogeneous group. Although they generally supported the court in the chamber, there were occasions, most notably when the king sought to alter the Restoration church settlement in the 1660s, when they were divided. Whilst the majority were staunch defenders of the established church, approximately a quarter supported attempts to broaden it by making concessions to moderate nonconformists.

The following sources were used in the compilation of this appendix: DNB; Journals of the House of Lords; E. Berwick (ed.), The Rawdon papers; G. R. Cragg, From puritanism to the age of reason; I. M. Green, The re-establishment of the Church of England; Haley, The first earl of Shaftesbury; T. Harris, P. Seaward and M. Goldie (eds.), The politics of religion in Restoration England (Oxford, 1991); P. Seaward, The Cavalier Parliament and the reconstruction of the old regime, 1661–1667; J. Spurr, ‘The Church of England, comprehension and the 1689 Toleration Act’, EHR, 104 (1989), 927–46; N. Sykes, From Sheldon to Seeker (Cambridge, 1959); R. R. Thomas, ‘Comprehension and Indulgence’, in G. F. Nuttall and O. Chadwick (eds.), From uniformity to unity (1962); Bodl., Tanner MSS 42, fol. 89; 43, fol. 249; 44, fol. 196; Add. MSS 23, 136, fol. 98.