s
the Judges, so desiring, were permitted to withdraw themselves into the
Lord Chancellor's private rooms, where having remained awhile and
advised together, they returned into the House, and, having taken their
places, and standing discovered, did, by the mouth of the Lord
Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, humbly desire to be forborne at this
time, in this place, to deliver any opinion in this case, for many
weighty and important reasons, which his Lordship delivered with great
gravity and eloquence; concluding that himself and his brethren are upon
particulars in judicial course to speak and judge between the King's
Majesty and his people, and likewise between his Highness's subjects,
and in no case to be disputants on any side."

Your Committee do not find anything which, through inadvertence or
design, had a tendency to subject the law and course of Parliament to
the opinions of the Judges of the inferior courts, from that period
until the 1st of James II. The trial of Lord Delamere for high treason
was had by special commission before the Lord High Steward: it was
before the act which directs that _all_ peers should be summoned to such
trials. This was not a trial in full Parliament, in which case it was
then contended for that the Lord High Steward was the judge of the law,
presiding in the Court, but had no vote in the verdict, and that the
Lords were triers only, and had no vote in the judgment of law. This was
looked on as the course, where the trial was not in full Parliament, in
which latter case there was no doubt but that the Lord High Steward made
a part of the body of the triers, and that the whole House was the
judge.[32] In this cause, after the evidence for the Crown had been
closed, the prisoner prayed the Court to adjourn. The Lord High Steward
doubted his power to take that step in that stage of the trial; and the
question was, "Whether, the trial not being in full Parliament, when the
prisoner is upon his trial, and evidence for the King is given, the
Lords being (as it may be termed) charged with the prisoner, the Peers
may separate for a time, which is the consequence of an adjournment?"
The Lord High Steward doubted of his power to adjourn the Court. The
case was evidently new, and his Grace proposed to have the opinion of
the Judges upon it. The Judges in consequence offering to withdraw into
the Exchequer Chamber, Lord Falconberg "insisted that the question
concerned the privilege of the Peer