e reported to the king in full
parliament that the peers of the land ought not to be arraigned, nor put
on trial, except in parliament and by their peers. The archbishop upon
this prayed the king, that, inasmuch as he had been notoriously defamed,
he might be arraigned in full parliament before the peers, and there
make answer; which request the king granted. (Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p.
127. Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 543.) The proceedings against
Stratford went no further; but I think it impossible not to admit that
his right to trial as a peer was fully recognised both by the king and
lords.

This is, however, the latest, and perhaps the only instance of a
prelate's obtaining so high a privilege. In the preceding reign of
Edward II., if we can rely on the account of Walsingham (p. 119), Adam
Orleton, the factious bishop of Hereford, had first been arraigned
before the house of lords, and subsequently convicted by a common jury;
but the transaction was of a singular nature, and the king might
probably be influenced by the difficulty of obtaining a conviction from
the temporal peers, of whom many were disaffected to him, in a case
where privilege of clergy was vehemently claimed. But about 1357 a
bishop of Ely, being accused of harbouring one guilty of murder, though
he demanded a trial by the peers, was compelled to abide the verdict of
a jury. (Collier, p. 557.) In the 31st of Edw. III. (1358) the abbot of
Missenden was hanged for coining. (2 Inst. p. 635.) The abbot of this
monastery appears from Dugdale to have been summoned by writ in the 49th
of Henry III. If he actually held by barony, I do not perceive any
strong distinction between his case and that of a bishop. The leading
precedent, however, and that upon which lawyers principally found their
denial of this privilege to the bishops, is the case of Fisher, who was
certainly tried before an ordinary jury; nor am I aware that any
remonstrance was made by himself, or complaint by his friends, upon this
ground. Cranmer was treated in the same manner; and from these two,
being the most recent precedents, though neither of them in the best of
times, the great plurality of law-books have drawn a conclusion that
bishops are not entitled to trial by the temporal peers. Nor can there
be much doubt that, whenever the occasion shall occur, this will be the
decision of the house of lords.

There are two peculiarities, as it may naturally appear, in the
above-mentione