These votes were, on the next day,
communicated to the Commons by message in the usual manner. On the 8th,
at a conference between the Houses upon the subject-matter of that
message, the Commons expressed themselves to the following
effect:--"They cannot apprehend what should induce your Lordships to
address his Majesty for an High Steward, for determining the validity of
the pardon which hath been pleaded by the Earl of Danby, as also for the
trial of the other five lords, because they conceive the constituting
an High Steward is not necessary, but that judgment may be given in
Parliament upon impeachment without an High Steward"; and concluded with
a proposition, that, for avoiding any interruption or delay, a committee
of both Houses might be nominated, to consider of the most proper ways
and methods of proceeding. This proposition the House of Peers, after a
long debate, rejected: _Dissentientibus_, Finch,[85] Chancellor, and
many other lords. However, on the 11th, the Commons' proposition of the
8th was upon a second debate agreed to; and the Lord Chancellor, Lord
President, and ten other lords, were named of the committee, to meet and
confer with a committee of the Commons. The next day the Lord President
reported, that the committees of both Houses met that morning, and made
an entrance into the business referred to them: that the Commons desired
to see the commissions that are prepared for an High Steward at these
trials, and also the commissions in the Lord Pembroke's and the Lord
Morley's cases: that to this the Lords' committees said,--"_The High
Steward is but Speaker pro tempore, and giveth his vote as well as the
other lords; this changeth not the nature of the court_; and the Lords
declared, they have power enough to proceed to trial, though the King
should not name an High Steward:[86] that this seemed to be a
satisfaction to the Commons, provided it was entered in the Lords'
Journals, which are records.
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