ONE very antient privilege is that declared by the charter of the forest[p], confirmed in parliament 9 Hen. III; viz. that every lord spiritual or temporal summoned to parliament, and passing through the king's forests, may, both in going and returning, kill one or two of the king's deer without warrant; in view of the forester, if he be present; or on blowing a horn if he be absent, that he may not seem to take the king's venison by stealth. [Footnote p: cap. 11.] IN the next place they have a right to be attended, and constantly are, by the judges of the court of king's bench and commonpleas, and such of the barons of the exchequer as are of the degree of the coif, or have been made serjeants at law; as likewise by the masters of the court of chancery; for their advice in point of law, and for the greater dignity of their proceedings. The secretaries of state, the attorney and solicitor general, and the rest of the king's learned counsel being serjeants, were also used to attend the house of peers, and have to this day their regular writs of summons issued out at the beginning of every parliament[q]: but, as many of them have of late years been members of the house of commons, their attendance is fallen into disuse. [Footnote q: Stat. 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10. Smith's commonw. b. 2. c. 3. Moor. 551. 4 Inst. 4. Hale of parl. 140.] ANOTHER privilege is, that every peer, by licence obtained from the king, may make another lord of parliament his proxy, to vote for him in his absence[r]. A privilege which a member of the other house can by no means have, as he is himself but a proxy for a multitude of other people[s]. [Footnote r: Seld. baronage. p. 1. c. 1.] [Footnote s: 4 Inst. 12.] EACH peer has also a right, by leave of the house, when a vote passes contrary to his sentiments, to enter his dissent on the journals of the house, with the reasons for such dissent; which is usually stiled his protest. ALL bills likewise, that may in their consequences any way affect the rights of the peerage, are by the custom of parliament to have their first rise and beginning in the house of peers, and to suffer no changes or amendments in the house of commons. THERE is also one statute peculiarly relative to the house of lords; 6 Ann. c. 23. which regulates the election of the sixteen representative peers of North Britain, in consequence of the twenty second and twenty third articles of the union: and for that purpose prescribes the oaths, &c, to be taken by the electors; directs the mode of balloting; prohibits the peers electing from being attended in an unusual manner; and expressly provides, that no other matter shall be treated of in that assembly, save only the election, on pain of incurring a praemunire. V. THE peculiar laws and customs of the house of commons relate principally to the raising of taxes, and the elections of members to serve in parliament.