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The Origin of Impeachment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
Strangely enough, it is only during the last few years that constitutional historians have turned their attention to the origin of impeachment. Yet it was one of the most spectacular of parliamentary proceedings, often a decisive weapon in political warfare, and of such proved usefulness that it came to be regarded as an inherent function of any representative legislature, and as such it figures not only in the American constitutions but also in so recent a document as the Weimar constitution of 1919.
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- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1942
References
page 47 note 1 Miss Clarke, , Fourteenth century studies, p. 268Google Scholar, traces the rise of this notion to the year 1624; it became classical dogma in Hale, , History of the pleas of the crown, ii. 150.Google Scholar
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page 49 note 2 Rot. Parl., iii. 233b.Google Scholar
page 49 note 3 The phrase is at least as old as 1339: Year book 12 & 13 Edward III (Rolls Series), 101.Google Scholar
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page 52 note 2 Rot. Parl., ii. 173Google Scholar, no. 68. For one more remark upon this case see below, p. 69. At least one merchant brought common law proceedings against Wesenham (ibid., p. 175, no. 1), and Cheriton's misdeeds were the subject of parliamentary complaint for some years: ibid., p. 230, no. 33 (1350); p. 242, no. 46 (1352); p. 307, no. 33 (1371).
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page 55 note 1 Calendared ibid., pp. 220–32.
page 55 note 2 Ibid., pp. 260–1.
page 56 note 1 Sayles, , Select cases in the court of king's bench (Selden Society), iii. lxxviGoogle Scholar, draws attention to new material.
page 56 note 2 See the valuable discussion and useful bibliography by Thorne, S. E., ‘Notes on courts of record in England’ in West Virginia Law Quarterly, xl. 347.Google Scholar
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page 56 note 5 13 Hen. IV, c. 7.
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page 59 note 1 Printed, in Rot. Parl., ii. 52 (from the parliament roll).Google Scholar
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page 60 note 2 Bracton, , fos. 137–137b.Google Scholar
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page 60 note 4 So under the Assize of Clarendon (1166), c. 14, persons found clean by the ordeal may yet be exiled if of bad fame.
page 60 note 5 For interesting material on the early continental history of ill-fame see Goebel, , Felony and misdemeanour, i. 65 ff.Google Scholar
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page 61 note 1 Ibid., p. 164, no. 54 (1341). Some years later the statute 34 Edw. III, c. I (1361), gave powers to justices of the peace to take sureties for good behaviour from persons not of good fame—powers which are still used.
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page 61 note 3 Ibid., p. 495, no. 30; 4 Hen. IV, c. 3.
page 61 note 4 2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 1.
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page 61 note 6 Cal. Pat. (1334–1338), p. 171.Google Scholar
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page 65 note 2 Year book 14 & 15 Edward III (Rolls Series), 258.Google Scholar
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page 66 note 1 Year book 17 Edward III (Rolls Series), p. 214 (1343)Google Scholar, states the principle, although it hardly applied to the case in hand, for the stolen cup was not found in the prisoner's possession; but the court was disposed to treat it as constructively maynour. For a prisoner who was discharged in 1290 because he was neither appealed nor indicted nor taken with the maynour, see Sayles, , Select cases in king's bench (Selden Society), ii. 26.Google Scholar
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page 67 note 3 Croniques de London (Camden Society), p. 87.Google Scholar
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page 69 note 1 Above, p. 52.
page 69 note 2 Above, p. 53; cf. the complaint against John Molyns in the great council of 1353; Rot. Parl., ii. 253, no. 40.Google Scholar
page 69 note 3 Above, p. 54.
page 69 note 4 Anominalle chronicle (ed. V. H. Galbraith), pp. 85–8.Google Scholar
page 69 note 5 Ibid., pp. 89–90.
page 70 note 1 This is the approximate date implied by the chronicler; the roll contains very few dates, although it does suggest (Rot. Parl., ii. 327, no. 30)Google Scholar that the trial of Latimer began on 26 May. For a discussion of these difficult chronological puzzles see Wilkinson, , op. cit., 95–6.Google Scholar
page 70 note 2 Rot. Parl., ii. 324, no. 20.Google Scholar
page 70 note 3 Ibid., p. 325, no. 25.
page 70 note 4 Ibid., p. 325, no. 26.
page 70 note 5 Ibid., p. 323, no. 17.
page 70 note 6 Ibid., p. 330, no. 47.
page 70 note 7 Anominalle chronicle, pp. 96, 98Google Scholar; Rymer, , Foedera, vii. 163, 168.Google Scholar
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