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Presidential Address: The Impeachments of 1376

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

T. F. T. Plucknett
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Extract

Nearly ten years ago I ventured to lay before you some speculations upon the origin of impeachment, and to suggest that the classical view of its nature was not a sure guide to its historical origins. In its developed form it could be reasonably described as a trial by the lords of a person whom the commons had indicted (or nearly so) of high crimes and misdemeanours. Thus linked up with the age-old criminal procedure of the common law, the parliamentary impeachment could cast a decent veil of legality over the political realities which too often disgraced it, and could pose before the world in the reassuring robes of justice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 1 , December 1951 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1951

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References

page 153 note 1 Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 4th ser., xxiv. 47–71.

page 154 note 1 The statutes mentioned by Clarke, M. V., Fourteenth Century Studies (1937), p. 246Google Scholar, do not agree, and do not always succeed in giving an exhaustive list of lawful procedures; the expression ‘due process’ in some of them may be an attempt to meet this deficiency by using a general term to cover those omitted.

page 154 note 2 Constitutional History (1875), ii. 430Google Scholar.

page 154 note 3 History of Criminal Law, i. 148.

page 154 note 4 History of English Law (1922), i. 380Google Scholar.

page 154 note 5 Fourteenth Century Studies, p. 242.

page 154 note 6 History of Pleas of the Crown, ii. 150.

page 155 note 1 Studies in Constitutional History, p. 82.

page 155 note 2 Chapters in Administrative History, iii. 286 ff.

page 155 note 3 Richard II, pp. 23 ff.

page 155 note 4 Chronicon Angliae (R.S. no. 64), pp. 68 ff., 391 ff.

page 155 note 5 Edited by V. H. Galbraith (19,27).

page 155 note 6 Rotuli Parliamentorum, ii. 321 (1–8).

page 155 note 7 Ibid., ii. 322 (9). This must not be taken as evidence that supply preceded redress.

page 155 note 8 Ibid., ii. 322 (io)–323 (14).

page 155 note 9 Ibid., ii. 323 (15)–330 (47).

page 155 note 10 Ibid., ii. 331 (52)–360 (212).

page 156 note 1 One would like to have seen that book; there is no statute on the subject, although the commons did petition in 1373 for the staple to be at Calais—to which the king gave an evasive reply: Rot. Pad., ii. 318 (17). See ProfessorGalbraith's, note in Anonimalle Chronicle, p. 183Google Scholar.

page 156 note 2 Ibid. p. 88.

page 156 note 3 Ibid., p. 89.

page 157 note 1 Ibid., p. 90.

page 157 note 2 Ibid., pp. 90–1.

page 157 note 3 Rot. Parl., ii. 322–3.

page 157 note 4 Baldwin, J. F., The King's Council, p. 120Google Scholar.

page 158 note 1 Anonimnalle Chronicle, p. 93.

page 159 note 1 As early as Glanvill, xiv. 1, a traitor could be taken, although there were no certain accuser; his trial would then be-by inquisition and ordeal.

page 160 note 1 In his defence, Rot. Parl., ii. 326a, Larimer answers that ‘bill’, but makes no allusion to any other. There seems no room, therefore, for the supposition that [written] petitions had become a [written] indictment. The impeachment as a whole was not embodied in a document; if it had been, the parliament roll would certainly have taken the easy course of reproducing it, instead of compiling a narrative of the lengthy proceedings.

page 160 note 2 There is an excellent history of ‘accroaching’ in Clarke, , Fourteenth Century Studies, p. 247Google Scholar. On the continent the idea was as old as 1066: Kern, F., Kingship and Law (tr. Chrimes, S. B.), p. 93Google Scholar.

page 161 note 1 Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 4th sen, xxiv. 65–7.

page 163 note 1 The same situation arose in Nevill's case when a witness in parliament did not maintain what he had previously said the day before to some of the commons; he was committed to prison.