When he was placed before the judges, and was called upon to plead, he admitted that he was the person indicted, but pleaded a misnomer in abatement—­or, in other words, that he was the Earl of Banbury.  The pleas occupied, subsequently, more than a year, during which time the prisoner was admitted to bail.  At last the House of Lords interfered, and called upon the Attorney-General to produce “an account in writing of the proceedings in the Court of King’s Bench against the person who claims the title of the Earl of Banbury.”  The Attorney-General acted up to his instructions, and Lord Chief-Justice Holt was heard by the Lords on the subject.  Parliament, however, was prorogued soon afterwards, and no decision was arrived at in the matter.  Meantime, the Court of King’s Bench proceeded to act as if no interference had been made, and quashed the indictment on the ground that the prisoner was erroneously styled “Charles Knollys” instead of “The Earl of Banbury.”

When the Lords reassembled on the 27th of November 1694 they were very wroth, but, after an angry debate, the affair was adjourned, and nothing more was heard of the Banbury Peerage until the beginning of 1698, when Charles Banbury again petitioned the king, and the petition was once more referred to the House of Lords.  Lord Chief-Justice Holt was summoned before the committee, and in answer to inquiries as to the motives which had actuated the judges of the King’s Bench, replied, “I acknowledge the thing; there was such a plea and such a replication.  I gave my judgment according to my conscience.  We are trusted with the law.  We are to be protected, not arraigned, and are not to give reasons for our judgment; therefore I desire to be excused giving any.”  Mr. Justice Eyre maintained the same dignified tone, and at length the House of Lords abandoned its fruitless struggle with the common-law Judges.  The petition of Lord Banbury was subsequently laid before the Privy Council, when the sudden death of Queen Anne once more put an end to the proceedings.

When the Hanoverian princes came to the throne, Lord Banbury again tempted fate by a new petition to the Crown.  Sir Philip York, the then Attorney-General, investigated the whole of the past proceedings from 1600 up to his time, and made a full report to the king, but no definite decision was given.  In 1740, the claimant Charles, so-called Earl of Banbury, died in France.  During his lifetime he had never ceased to bear the title he had presented five petitions to the Crown, demanding the acknowledgment of his rights, and neither he nor any of his family, during the eighty years which had elapsed from the first preferment of the claim, had ever relinquished an iota of their pretensions.

At his death Charles, the third assumed Earl of Banbury, left a son called Charles, who adopted the title, and, dying in 1771, bequeathed it to his son William, who bore it until his decease in 1776.  He was, in turn, succeeded by his brother Thomas, at whose death, in 1793, it devolved upon his eldest son, William Knollys, then called Viscount Wallingford, who immediately assumed the title of Earl of Banbury, and in 1806 presented a formal petition to the Crown—­a petition which was in due course referred to the Attorney-General, and was by his advice transferred to the House of Lords.