This, from the most early times, has been the course in all
judgments in the House of Peers. Formerly even the record contained the
reasons of the decision. "The reason wherefore," said Lord Coke, "the
records of Parliaments have been so highly extolled is, that therein is
set down, in cases of difficulty, not only the judgment and resolution,
but _the reasons and causes of the same_ by so great advice."[17]
In the 30th of Charles II., during the trial of Lord Cornwallis,[18] on
the suggestion of a question in law to the Judges, Lord Danby demanded
of the Lord High Steward, the Earl of Nottingham, "whether it would be
proper here [in open court] to ask the question of your Grace, or to
propose it to the Judges?" The Lord High Steward answered,--"If your
Lordships doubt of anything whereon a question in law ariseth, the
latter opinion, and the _better_ for the prisoner, is, _that it must be
stated in the presence of the prisoner, that he may know whether the
question be truly put_. It hath _sometimes_ been practised otherwise,
and the Peers have sent for the Judges, and have asked their opinion in
private, and have come back, and have given their verdict according to
that opinion; and there is scarcely a precedent of its being otherwise
done.
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