But even in this one instance the Lords seemed to
show a marked anxiety not to narrow too much the admissibility of
evidence; for they confined their determination "to this individual
case," as the Lord Steward reported their resolution; and he
adds,--"They conceive this could be no impediment or failure in the
proceeding, because the truth and verity of it would depend on the first
general power given to execute it, which they who manage the evidence
for the Commons say they could prove."[36] Neither have objections to
evidence offered by the prisoner been very frequently made, nor often
allowed when made. In the same case of Lord Strafford, two books
produced by his Lordship, without proof by whom they were written, were
rejected, (and on a clear principle,) "as being private books, and no
records."[37] On both these occasions, the questions were determined by
the Lords alone, without any resort to the opinions of the Judges. In
the impeachments of Lord Stafford, Dr. Sacheverell, and Lord Wintoun, no
objection to evidence appears in the Lords' Journals to have been
pressed, and not above one taken, which was on the part of the Managers.
Several objections were, indeed, taken to evidence in Lord
Macclesfield's trial.
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