Instances of conventions of the peers, to adviſe the king, have been in former times very frequent; though now fallen into diſuſe, by reaſon of the more regular meetings of parliament. Sir Edward Coke[1] 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 ſettled by advice of parliament (if any ſhould be called before the feaſt of St Lucia) or otherwiſe by advice of the grand council (of peers) which the king promiſes to aſſemble before the ſaid feaſt, in caſe no parliament ſhall 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 ſo long left off, that when king Charles I in 1640 iſſued out writs under the great ſeal to call a great council of all the peers of England to meet and attend his majeſty at York, previous to the meeting of the long parliament, the earl of Clarendon[2] mentions it as a new invention, not before heard of; that is, as he explains himſelf, ſo old, that it had not been practiced in ſome hundreds of years. But, though there had not ſo long before been an inſtance, nor has there been any ſince, of aſſembling them in ſo ſolemn a manner, yet, in caſes of emergency, our princes have at ſeveral times thought proper to call for and conſult as many of the nobility as could eaſily be got together: as was particularly the caſe with king James the ſecond, after the landing of the prince of Orange; and with the prince of Orange himſelf, before he called that convention parliament, which afterwards called him to the throne.
Besides this general meeting, it is uſually 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 reſpect, ſuch matters as he ſhall judge of importance to the public weal. And therefore, in the reign of Edward II, it was made an article of impeachment in parliament againſt the two Hugh
