The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. | Page 4

and Serjeants, and others the
learned in the Law Civil, were charged, by order of the King our
sovereign aforesaid, to give their faithful counsel to the Lords of the
Parliament concerning the due proceedings in the cause of the appeal
aforesaid. The which Justices, Serjeants, and the learned in the law of
the kingdom, and also the learned in the Law Civil, have taken the
same into deliberation, and have answered to the said Lords of
Parliament, that they had seen and well considered the tenor of the said
appeal; and they say that the same appeal was neither made nor pleaded
according to the order which the one law or the other requires. Upon
which the said Lords of Parliament have taken the same into
deliberation and consultation, and by the assent of our said Lord the
King, and of their common agreement, it was declared, that, in so high
a crime as that which is charged in this appeal, which touches the
person of our lord the King, and the state of the whole kingdom,
perpetrated by persons who are peers of the kingdom, along with others,
the cause shall not be tried in any other place but in Parliament, nor by
any other law than the law and course of Parliament; and that it
belongeth to the Lords of Parliament, and to their franchise and liberty
by the ancient custom of the Parliament, to be judges in such cases, and
in these cases to judge by the assent of the King; and thus it shall be
done in this case, by the award of Parliament: because the realm of
England has not been heretofore, nor is it the intention of our said lord

the King and the Lords of Parliament that it ever should be governed by
the Law Civil; and also, it is their resolution not to rule or govern so
high a cause as this appeal is, which cannot be tried anywhere but in
Parliament, as hath been said before, by the course, process, and order
used in any courts or place inferior in the same kingdom; which courts
and places are not more than the executors of the ancient laws and
customs of the kingdom, and of the ordinances and establishments of
Parliament. It was determined by the said Lords of Parliament, by the
assent of our said lord the King, that this appeal was made and pleaded
well and sufficiently, and that the process upon it is good and effectual,
according to the law and course of Parliament; and for such they decree
and adjudge it."[2]
And your Committee finds, that toward the close of the same
Parliament the same right was again claimed and admitted as the
special privilege of the Peers, in the following manner:--"In this
Parliament, all the Lords then present, Spiritual as well as Temporal,
claimed as their franchise, that the weighty matters moved in this
Parliament, and which shall be moved in other Parliaments in future
times, touching the peers of the land, shall be managed, adjudged, and
discussed by the course of Parliament, and in no sort by the Law Civil,
or by the common law of the land, used in the other lower courts of the
kingdom; which claim, liberty, and franchise the King graciously
allowed and granted to them in full Parliament."[2]
Your Committee finds that the Commons, having at that time
considered the appeal above mentioned, approved the proceedings in it,
and, as far as in them lay, added the sanction of their accusation against
the persons who were the objects of the appeal. They also, immediately
afterwards, impeached all the Judges of the Common Pleas, the Chief
Baron of the Exchequer, and other learned and eminent persons, both
peers and commoners; upon the conclusion of which impeachments it
was that the second claim was entered. In all the transactions aforesaid
the Commons were acting parties; yet neither then nor ever since have
they made any objection or protestation, that the rule laid down by the
Lords in the beginning of the session of 1388 ought not to be applied to
the impeachments of commoners as well as peers. In many cases they

have claimed the benefit of this rule; and in all cases they have acted,
and the Peers have determined, upon the same general principles. The
Peers have always supported the same franchises; nor are there any
precedents upon the records of Parliament subverting either the general
rule or the particular privilege, so far as the same relates either to the
course of proceeding or to the rule of law by which the Lords are to
judge.
Your Committee observes also, that, in the commissions to the several
Lords High Stewards who have been appointed on the trials of peers
impeached by the