Editing Privilege of peerage (section)

== Trial by peers ==

{{Infobox UK legislation
| short_title           = Trial of Peers Act 1341
| type                  = Act
| parliament            = Parliament of England
| long_title            = The peers of the realm and great officers for great offences shall be tried in parliament.
| year                  = 1341
| citation              = [[15 Edw. 3 Stat. 1]]. c. 2
| introduced_commons    = 
| introduced_lords      = 
| territorial_extent    = 
| royal_assent          = 
| commencement          = 
| expiry_date           = 
| repeal_date           = 
| amends                = 
| replaces              = 
| amendments            = 
| repealing_legislation = [[15 Edw. 3. Stat. 2]]
| related_legislation   = 
| status                = Repealed
| legislation_history   = 
| theyworkforyou        = 
| millbankhansard       = 
| original_text         = 
| revised_text          = 
| use_new_UK-LEG        = 
| UK-LEG_title          = 
| collapsed             = yes
}}
Just as commoners have a right to trial by a jury of their equals (other commoners), peers and peeresses formerly had a right to trial by other peers. The right of peers to trial by their own order was formalized during the 14th century. A statute, the {{visible anchor|Trial of Peers Act 1341}} ([[15 Edw. 3 Stat. 1]]. c. 2) passed in 1341 provided:<ref>15 Edward&nbsp;III., st. 1, sec. 2. quoted in [[Lysander Spooner|Spooner, Lysander]] (1852). [[gutenberg:1201|"An Essay on the Trial by Jury."]] Boston: Hobart and Robbins. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.</ref>

{{boxquote|Whereas before this time the peers of the land have been arrested and imprisoned, and their temporalities, lands, and tenements, goods and cattels, asseized in the King's hands, and some put to death without judgment of their peers: It is accorded and assented, that no peer of the land&nbsp;... shall be brought in judgment to lose his temporalities, lands, tenements, goods and cattels, nor to be arrested, imprisoned, outlawed, exiled, nor forejudged, nor put to answer, nor be judged, but by award of the said peers in Parliament.}}

The privilege of trial by peers was still ill-defined, and the statute did not cover peeresses. In 1442, after an ecclesiastical court (which included King [[Henry VI of England]], [[Henry Beaufort]] and [[John Kemp]]) found [[Eleanor Cobham|Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester]], guilty of [[witchcraft]] and banished her to the [[Isle of Man]], a statute was enacted granting peeresses the right of trial by peers.<ref name="lovell">{{Cite journal |author=Lovell, C. R. |date=October 1949 |title=The Trial of Peers in Great Britain |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=69–81 |doi=10.2307/1841088 |jstor=1841088}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Pike, L. O. |title=A Constitutional History of the House of Lords |publisher=Macmillan |year=1894 |location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n252 215]–[https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n253/mode/2up?view=theater 217]}}</ref>

By the reign of [[Henry VII of England]], there were two methods of trial by peers of the realm: trial in the House of Lords (or, in proper terms, by the High Court of Parliament) and trial in the Court of the [[Lord High Steward]]. The House of Lords tried the case if Parliament was in session; otherwise, trial was by the Lord High Steward's Court.<ref>Pike, pp.[https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n255/mode/2up?view=theater 218]–[https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n263/mode/2up?view=theater 227]</ref>

In the Lord High Steward's Court, a group of Lords Triers, sitting under the chairmanship of the Lord High Steward, acted as judge and jury. By custom, the number of Triers was not fewer than 23, so that a majority was a minimum of 12, but in fact, the number ranged from 20 to 35. The power to choose which peers served as Triers lay with the Crown and was sometimes subject to abuse, as only those peers who agreed with the monarch's position would be summoned to the Court of the Lord High Steward, thereby favouring the desired verdict. This practice was ended by the [[Treason Act 1695]], passed during the reign of King [[William III of England|William III]]. The Act required that all peers be summoned as Triers. All subsequent trials were held before the full House of Lords.<ref name="lovell" />

In the House of Lords, the Lord High Steward was the President or Chairman of the Court, and the entire House determined both questions of fact and questions of law as well as the verdict. By convention, [[Bishop]]s and [[Archbishop]]s did not vote on the verdict, though they were expected to attend during the course of the trial. They sat until the conclusion of the deliberations, and withdrew from the chamber just prior to the final vote.<ref>Pike, [https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n263/mode/2up?view=theater p.227]</ref> At the end of the trial, peers voted on the question before them by standing and declaring their verdict by saying "guilty, upon my honour" or "not guilty, upon my honour", starting with the most junior [[baron]] and proceeding in order of precedence ending with the Lord High Steward. For a guilty verdict, a majority of twelve was necessary.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jacob |first=Giles |title=A new law dictionary containing the interpretation and definition of words and terms used in the law, and also the whole law, etc |publisher=Savey-Lintot |year=1750 |page=68 |author-link=Giles Jacob}}</ref> The entire House also determined the punishment to be imposed, which had to accord with the law.<ref>Pike, pp.[https://archive.org/details/aconstitutional00pikegoog/page/n267/mode/2up?view=theater 230–231]</ref> For capital crimes the punishment was death; the last peer to be executed was [[Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers]], who was hanged for murder in 1760.<ref name="lovell" />

From 1547, if a peer or peeress was convicted of a crime, except treason or murder, he or she could claim "privilege of peerage" to escape punishment if it was his or her first offence. In all, the privilege was exercised five times,<ref>[[Baron Morley]] found guilty of manslaughter in 1666; the [[Earl of Pembroke]] found guilty of manslaughter in 1678; the [[Earl of Warwick|Earl of Warwick and Holland]] found guilty of manslaughter in 1699; [[William Byron, 5th Baron Byron|Lord Byron]] found guilty of manslaughter in 1765; and the [[Elizabeth Pierrepont, Duchess of Kingston-upon-Hull|Duchess of Kingston]] found guilty of bigamy in 1776.</ref> until it was formally abolished in 1841 when [[James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan]], announced he would claim the privilege and avoid punishment if he was convicted of duelling. He was acquitted before the introduction of the bill.<ref name="lovell" />

A trial by the Lords{{snd}}which a peer could not waive{{snd}}was far more a burden than a privilege; unlike commoners, peers had no right to challenge the composition of the jury or to appeal any decision, and there was no leniency granted to those convicted in such a trial compared to commoners convicted of such offences. This was furthered by the fact that the Lords relied almost exclusively on the advice of royal counsel to make any decisions of fact or law. By the late 1930s, supporters of retaining the privilege were a minority in the Lords comprising mainly the holders of older peerages considering it a privilege of the House as a whole, whereas the majority favouring its abolition were holders of newly-granted peerages resenting the difficulties such a trial gave to individual accused peers.<ref name="lovell" />

The last trial in the House of Lords was that of [[Edward Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford]], in 1935 for manslaughter (he was acquitted); the following year the Lords passed a bill to abolish trial by peers but the Commons ignored it. The right to trial by peers was abolished when the Lords added an amendment to the [[Criminal Justice Act 1948]], which the Commons accepted.<ref name="lovell" /> Now peers are tried by juries composed of commoners, though peers were themselves excused from jury service until the [[House of Lords Act 1999]] restricted this privilege to members of the House of Lords.<ref>{{cite web |date=15 November 1999 |title=Explanatory Notes to House Of Lords Act 1999 (paragraph 8) |url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/notes/division/4/1 |access-date=13 June 2010 |publisher=[[Her Majesty's Stationery Office]]}}</ref> The right to be excused was abolished on 5 April 2004 by the [[Criminal Justice Act 2003]].<ref>Schedule 33, paragraph 1; brought into force by the third commencement order, article 2.</ref>

Peers were and still are, hypothetically, subject to [[Impeachment in the United Kingdom|impeachment]]. Impeachment was a procedure distinct from the aforementioned procedure of trial in the House of Lords, though the House of Lords is the court in both cases. Charges were brought by the House of Commons, not a grand jury. Additionally, while in normal cases the House of Lords tried peers only for felonies or treason, in impeachments the charges could include felonies, treason and misdemeanours. The case directly came before the House of Lords, rather than being referred to it by a [[writ of certiorari]]. The Lord High Steward presided only if a peer was charged with high treason; otherwise, the [[Lord Chancellor]] presided. Other procedures in trials of impeachment were similar, however, to trials before the House of Lords: at the conclusion of the trial, the spiritual peers withdrew, and the temporal Lords gave their votes on their honour. The last impeachment was that of [[Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville]], in 1806 for misappropriating public money (he was acquitted).<ref>{{cite web |author=Gay, Oonagh |date=30 November 2004 |title=Impeachment |url=http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-02666.pdf |access-date=2007-11-15 |publisher=House of Commons }}</ref> Since then, impeachment has become an obsolete procedure in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite web |date=30 March 1999 |title=Chapter 1: The Need for a Review |url=http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/jt199899/jtselect/jtpriv/43/4305.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060511194446/http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/jt199899/jtselect/jtpriv/43/4305.htm |archive-date=11 May 2006 |access-date=2007-11-07 |work=Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege – First Report |publisher=United Kingdom Parliament |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

The novel ''[[Clouds of Witness]]'' (1926) by [[Dorothy L. Sayers]] depicts the fictional trial in the House of Lords of a duke who is accused of murder. Sayers researched and used the then-current trial procedures. The comedy film ''[[Kind Hearts and Coronets]]'' (1949) from [[Ealing Studios]] features an almost identical scene.