Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/244

228 of conventions of the peers, to advie the king, have been in former times very frequent; though now fallen into diue, by reaon of the more regular meetings of parliament. Sir Edward Coke gives us an extract of a record, 5 Hen. IV, concerning an exchange of lands between the king and the earl of Northumberland, wherein the value of each was agreed to be ettled by advice of parliament (if any hould be called before the feat of St Lucia) or otherwie by advice of the grand council (of peers) which the king promies to aemble before the aid feat, in cae no parliament hall be called. Many other instances of this kind of meeting are to be found under our antient kings: though the formal method of convoking them had been o long left off, that when king Charles I in 1640 iued out writs under the great eal to call a great council of all the peers of England to meet and attend his majety at York, previous to the meeting of the long parliament, the earl of Clarendon mentions it as a new invention, not before heard of; that is, as he explains himelf, o old, that it had not been practiced in ome hundreds of years. But, though there had not o long before been an intance, nor has there been any ince, of aembling them in o olemn a manner, yet, in caes of emergency, our princes have at everal times thought proper to call for and conult as many of the nobility as could eaily be got together: as was particularly the cae with king James the econd, after the landing of the prince of Orange; and with the prince of Orange himelf, before he called that convention parliament, which afterwards called him to the throne. this general meeting, it is uually looked upon to be the right of each particular peer of the realm, to demand an audience of the king, and to lay before him, with decency and repect, uch matters as he hall judge of importance to the public weal. And therefore, in the reign of Edward II, it was made an article of impeachment in parliament againt the two Hugh Spencers,