On the first of July, 1717, the Earl was brought to the bar to hear from the Lord High Steward a declaration that ‘Robert, Earl of OXFORD, is, by the unanimous vote of all the Lords present, acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, by the House of Commons, for High Treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the said impeachment shall be and is hereby dismissed.’ Then the Steward said, ‘Lieutenant of the Tower, You are now to discharge your prisoner.’ [Sidenote: OXFORD’S RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 1717, July.] On the third of July, the Earl resumed his seat as a peer of Parliament. On the fourth, the Commons resolved to address the King, beseeching him ‘to except Robert, Earl of OXFORD, out of the Act of Grace which Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to promise from the throne, to the end the Commons may be at liberty to proceed against the said Earl in a parliamentary way.’ [Sidenote: _Journals_, vol. xviii, p. 617.] No such proceeding, of course, was taken or intended. For several years to come Lord OXFORD took part, from time to time, in the business of Parliament. He served often on Committees in these final years of his public life, just as he had done during his early years of apprenticeship in the Lower House. In the Lords, as in the Commons, he was listened to with especial deference on points of parliamentary law and privilege. From time to time, also, the Jacobite agitators, both at home and abroad, made repeated appeals to him, direct or indirect, for countenance and help in their schemes. They had, it seems, a confident hope that the sufferings and the humiliation inflicted on him in the years 1715–1717 must have so entirely alienated him from the reigning House, as now, at all events, to have prepared him to be really their fellow-conspirator, on the first occurrence of a promising opportunity. [Sidenote: ALLEGED RENEWAL OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE STUART AGENTS.] How far the Earl listened to such suggestions and persuasions is still, it will be seen, matter of great and curious uncertainty.[38] [Sidenote: DOMESTIC LIFE OF LORD OXFORD.]