To the Second Question.

“Supposing the day appointed by the judgment for execution should lapse before such execution done, (which, however, the law will not presume,) we are all of opinion that a new time may be appointed for the execution, either by the High Court of Parliament, before which such peer shall have been attainted, or by the Court of King’s Bench, the Parliament not then sitting:  the record of the attainder being properly removed into that court.”

The reasons upon which the Judges founded their answer to the question relating to the further proceedings of the House after the High Steward’s commission dissolved, which is usually done upon pronouncing judgment, may possibly require some further discussion.  I will, therefore, before I conclude, mention those which weighed with me, and, I believe, with many others of the Judges.

Reasons, &c.

Every proceeding in the House of Peers, acting in its judicial capacity, whether upon writ of error, impeachment, or indictment, removed thither by Certiorari, is in judgment of law a proceeding before the King in Parliament; and therefore the House, in all those cases, may not improperly be styled the Court of our Lord the King in Parliament.  This court is founded upon immemorial usage, upon the law and custom of Parliament, and is part of the original system of our Constitution.  It is open for all the purposes of judicature, during the continuance of the Parliament:  it openeth at the beginning and shutteth at the end of every session:  just as the Court of King’s Bench, which, is likewise in judgment of law held before the King himself, openeth and shutteth with the term.  The authority of this court, or, if I may use the expression, its constant activity for the ends of public justice, independent of any special powers derived from the Crown, is not doubted in the case of writs of error from those courts of law whence error lieth in Parliament, and of impeachments for misdemeanors.

It was formerly doubted, whether, in the case of an impeachment for treason, and in the case of an indictment against a peer for any capital crime, removed into Parliament by Certiorari, whether in these cases the court can proceed to trial and judgment without an High Steward appointed by special commission from the Crown.  This doubt seemeth to have arisen from the not distinguishing between a proceeding in the Court of the High Steward and that before the King in Parliament.  The name, style, and title of office is the same in both cases:  but the office, the powers and preeminences annexed to it, differ very widely; and so doth the constitution of the courts where the offices are executed.  The identity of the name may have confounded our ideas, as equivocal words often do, if the nature of things is not attended to; but the nature of the offices, properly stated, will, I hope, remove every doubt on these points.