that the right of receiving appeals, and fuperintending all other jurisdictions, still remained in that noble affembly, from which every other great court was derived. They are therefore in all caufes the last resort, from whofe judgment no farther appeal is permitted; but every subordinate tribunal must conform to their determinations; the law repofing an entire confidence in the honour and confcience of the noble perfons, who compofe this important assembly, that they will make themselves mafters of those queftions, upon which they undertake to decide; fince upon their decifion all property must finally depend."

This jurifdiction of the house of peers is more clearly represented by Mr. Erskine, in his argument upon the rights of juries, in the cafe of the Dean of St. Afaph: "This po

*

pular judicature was not confined to particular districts, or to inferior fuits and mifde

meanors, but pervaded the whole legal constitution; for when the Conqueror, to increase the influence of his crown, erected that

* Page 128, 129. This ingenious and inftructive argument will ferve as a correct conftitutional chart for juries to direct their courfe by in determining the fates of their countrymen, against any superior awe or collateral bias.

The peers were

originally jurors in the

king's court.

great fuperintending court of justice in his own palace, to receive appeals criminal and civil from every court in the kingdom, and placed at the head of it the capitalis jufticiarius totius Anglia, of whose original authority the chief justice of this court is but a partial and feeble emanation, even that great magistrate was in the aula regis merely ministerial; every one of the king's tenants, who owed him fervice in right of a barony had a seat and a voice in that high tribunal; and the office of jufticiar was but to record and to enforce their judgments.

"In the reign of king Edward the First, when this great office was abolished, and the prefent courts at Westminster established by a diftribution of its powers, the barons preferved that fupreme fuperintending jurifdiction, which never belonged to the jufticiar, but to themselves only, as the jurors in the king's court; a jurifdiction which, when nobility, from being territorial and feodal, became perfonal and honorary, was affumed and exercised by the peers of England, who without any delegation of judicial authority from the crown, form to this day the fupreme and final court of English law, judging in the last refort for the whole kingdom, and fitting upon the lives of the

peerage, in

their ancient and genuine character, as the peers of one another."

The high court of parliament is the fupreme court in the kingdom for the trial of great and enormous offenders, whether lords or commons, in the method of parliamentary impeachment; for an impeachment before the lords by the commons of Great Britain is a prefentment to the most high and fupreme court of criminal jurifdiction, by the moftfolemn grand inqueft of the whole kingdom. * A commoner cannot however be impeached before the lords for any capital offence, but only for high misdemeanors; a peer may be impeached for any crime. And they usually (in cafe of the impeachment of peer for treafon) addrefs the crown to appoint a lord high fteward for the greater dignity and regularity of their proceedings. The articles of impeachment are a kind of bills of indictment found by the house of commons, and afterwards tried by the lords; who are in cafes of misdemeanors confidered not only as their own peers, but as the of the whole nation,

a

peers

*Black. Com. b. iv. c. xix. and Hale's Pl. Cor. Pt. ü.

The houfe of

peers is the fu

preme court for parliamentary impeachments.

The office of a

lord high

steward.

150.

Cc4

<< The

They were not

anciently bound

* « The execution of all our laws hath been long fince diftributed by parliament out of inferior courts in fuch fort, as the fubjects were directed where to complain, and the justices how to redress wrongs, and punish offences; and this may be the reason of the judges opinion in Thorp's cafe, 31 Henry VI. num. 37.

"That actions at common law are not determined in this high court of parliament, yet complaints have ever been received in parliaments, as well of private wrongs as public offences. And according to the quality of the perfon, and nature of the offence, they have been retained or referred to the common law.

"Touching the quality of the person, the to try any offen- lords of the parliament did not anciently try

der who was not their peer.

any offenders, how great foever the offence was, unless he were their peer. As by that of 4 Edward III. num. 2. where when the. king commanded the lords to give judgment on Simon de Bereford and divers others also, who were not their peers, for the murther of Edward II. and the deftruction of the earl of Kent fon of Edward the First, a provifo and agreement was made and recorded in

• Selden's Judic. in Parliament, p. 1. & feq.

thefe

thefe words; Et eft affenfu & accord. &c. and it is affented and accorded by our lord the king, and all the grandees in full parliament, that albeit the peers as judges of the parliament have took upon them and rendred the faid judgment, &c. that yet the faid peers, who now are or fhall be in time to come, be not bound or charged to render judgments upon others than peers; nor that the peers of the land have power to do this, but thereof ever to be difcharged and acquitted; and that the aforefaid judgment rendered be not drawn to example or confequence time to come, whereby the faid peers shall do contrary to the laws of the land, if the like cafe happen, which God forbid. Edward III. num. 6. This provifo and agreement was made by the lords and commons, and it had these respects: First, to fatisfy the commons, that the lords by these judgments intended not to alter the course of the common-law, and therefore they difclaimed, that they had power to do this, and confess it was contrary to the law of the

land.

in

"Secondly, To preferve their own right to judge none but the peers in cafe of life and death. For then the king's fteward is to fit in the chancellor's place, and the lords

are

Their right and try offenders

obligation to

afcertained.

to