This is a list of trials of peers in the House of Lords. Until 1948, peers of the United Kingdom and its predecessor states had the right to trial by peers.
Year | Peer | Charge | Verdict | Sentence |
---|---|---|---|---|
1499 | The Earl of Warwick | treason | pleaded guilty | death |
1522 | The Duke of Buckingham | treason | guilty | death |
1535 | The Lord Dacre | treason | not guilty | |
1536 | The Queen | treason | guilty | death |
Viscount Rochford | ||||
1541 | The Lord Dacre | murder | guilty | death |
1551 | The Duke of Somerset | treason | guilty of an unspecified felony | death |
1553 | The Duke of Northumberland | treason | guilty | death |
1571 | The Duke of Norfolk | treason | guilty | death |
1589 | The Earl of Arundel and Surrey | treason | guilty | death (died before sentence was carried out) |
1600 | The Earl of Essex | treason | guilty | death |
The Earl of Southampton | death (pardoned) | |||
1603 | The Lord Grey | treason | guilty | death (commuted to imprisonment) |
The Lord Cobham | ||||
1616 | The Earl of Somerset | murder | guilty | death (pardoned) |
1616 | The Countess of Somerset | murder | pleaded guilty | death (pardoned) |
1631 | The Earl of Castlehaven | rape | guilty | death |
1641 | The Earl of Strafford | treason | prosecution dropped | |
1666 | The Lord Morley | murder | guilty of manslaughter | pleaded privilege* |
1678 | The Lord Cornwallis | murder | not guilty | |
1678 | The Earl of Pembroke | murder | guilty of manslaughter | pleaded privilege* |
1680 | The Viscount Stafford | treason | guilty | death |
1686 | The Lord Delamere | treason | not guilty | |
1692 | The Lord Mohun | murder | not guilty | |
1699 | The Earl of Warwick and Holland | murder | guilty of manslaughter | pleaded privilege* |
1699 | The Lord Mohun | murder | not guilty | |
1716 | The Earl of Derwentwater | treason | pleaded guilty | death |
The Lord Widdrington | death (pardoned) | |||
The Earl of Nithsdale | death (escaped) | |||
The Earl of Carnwath | death (pardoned) | |||
The Viscount Kenmure | death | |||
The Lord Nairne | death (pardoned) | |||
1716 | The Earl of Winton | treason | guilty | death (escaped) |
1717 | The Earl of Oxford and Mortimer | treason | not guilty | |
1746 | The Earl of Kilmarnock | treason | pleaded guilty | death |
The Earl of Cromartie | pleaded guilty | death (pardoned) | ||
The Lord Balmerinoch | guilty | death | ||
1747 | The Lord Lovat | treason | guilty | death |
1760 | The Earl Ferrers | murder | guilty | death |
1765 | The Lord Byron | murder | guilty of manslaughter | pleaded privilege* |
1776 | The Duchess of Kingston | bigamy | guilty | pleaded privilege* |
1841 | The Earl of Cardigan | duelling | not guilty | |
1901 | The Earl Russell | bigamy | guilty | 3 months' detention |
1935 | The Lord de Clifford | manslaughter | not guilty | |
*These were all capital crimes; the usual sentence was death. From 1547 if a peer or peeress was convicted of a crime, except treason or murder, he or she could claim "privilege of peerage" to escape punishment if it was their first offence. In all, the privilege was exercised five times, until it was formally abolished in 1841. | ||||
Famous quotes containing the words house of lords, list of, list, trials, peers, house and/or lords:
“The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.”
—Tony Benn (b. 1925)
“Loves boat has been shattered against the life of everyday. You and I are quits, and its useless to draw up a list of mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.”
—Vladimir Mayakovsky (18931930)
“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (18411935)
“It is time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest, cannot be efficient.... We have in the darkest moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our own destiny.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945)
“He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Ghosts, we hope, may be always with usthat is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditionsthey enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (18991973)
“O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark....”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)