[293] Madox, Baronia Anglica, p. 42 and 58; West's Inquiry, p. 28, 33. That a baron could only be tried by his fellow barons was probably a rule as old as the trial per pais of a commoner. In 4 E. III. Sir Simon Bereford having been accused before the lords in parliament of aiding and advising Mortimer in his treasons, they declared with one voice that he was not their peer; wherefore they were not bound to judge him as a peer of the land; but inasmuch as it was notorious that he had been concerned in usurpation of royal powers and murder of the liege lord (as they styled Edward II.), the lords, as judges of parliament, by assent of the king in parliament, awarded and adjudged him to be hanged. A like sentence with a like protestation was passed on Mautravers and Gournay. There is a very remarkable anomaly in the case of Lord Berkley, who, though undoubtedly a baron, his ancestors having been summoned from the earliest date of writs, put himself on his trial in parliament, by twelve knights of the county of Gloucester. Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 53; Rymer, t. iv. p. 734. [294] Prynne, p. 142, &c.; West's Inquiry. [295] Prynne, p. 141. [296] It is worthy of observation that the spiritual peers summoned to parliament were in general considerably more numerous than the temporal. Prynne, p. 114. This appears, among other causes, to have saved the church from that sweeping reformation of its wealth, and perhaps of its doctrines, which the commons were thoroughly inclined to make under Richard II. and Henry IV. Thus the reduction of the spiritual lords by the dissolution of monasteries was indispensably required to bring the ecclesiastical order into due subjection to the state. [297] Perhaps it can hardly be said that the king's prerogative compelled the party summoned, not being a tenant by barony, to take his seat. But though several spiritual persons appear to have been discharged from attendance on account of their holding nothing by barony, as has been justly observed, yet there is, I believe, no instance of any layman's making such an application. The terms of the ancient writ of summons, however, in fide et _homagio_ quibus nobis tenemini, afford a presumption that a feudal tenure was, in construction of law, the basis of every lord's attendance in parliament. This form was not finally changed to the present, in fide et _ligeantiâ_, till the 46th of Edw. III. Prynne's first Register, p. 206. [298] Collins's Proceedings on Claims of Baronies, p. 24 and 73. [299] Prynne speaks of "the alienation of baronies by sale, gift, or marriage, after which the new purchasers were summoned instead," as if it frequently happened. First Register, p. 239. And several instances are mentioned in the Bergavenny case (Collins's Proceedings, p. 113) where, land-baronies having been entailed by the owners on their heirs male, the heirs general have been excluded from inheriting the dignity.