What, therefore, are the things due and belonging to the office in a
case of this kind? Not, as in the Court of the High Steward, a right of
judicature; for the commission itself supposeth that right to reside in
a court then subsisting before the King in Parliament. The parties are
to be there heard, sentenced, and adjudged. What share in the proceeding
doth the High Steward, then, take? By the practice and usage of the
Court of the Peers in Parliament, he giveth his vote as a member
thereof, with the rest of the peers; but, for the sake of regularity and
order, he presideth during the trial and until judgment, as Chairman or
Speaker _pro tempore_. In that respect, therefore, it may be properly
enough said, that his presence is required during the trial and until
judgment, and in no other. Herein I see no difference between the case
of an impeachment and of an indictment. I say, during the time of the
trial and until judgment; because the court hath, as I observed before,
from time to time done various acts, plainly judicial, before the
appointment of an High Steward, and where no High Steward hath ever been
appointed, and even after the commission dissolved. I will to this
purpose cite a few cases.
I begin with the latest, because they are the latest, and were ruled
with great deliberation, and for the most part upon a view of former
precedents.
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