For about a century and a half prior to the reign of James I. the criminal jurisdiction of parliament remained in abeyance, and bills of attainder were the vogue. The practice of appoint ing a steward on these occasions to execute judgment upon a peer was kept up till 1477—when George, duke of Clarence, was attainted—and then dropped. Under the Stuarts the criminal jurisdiction of parliament was again resorted to, and, when the proceedings against a peer were founded on indictment, the ap pointment of a steward followed as a matter of settled practice. The proper procedure in cases of impeachment had, on the con trary, never been defined. On the impeachment of Strafford the lords themselves appointed Arundel to be high steward. In Danby's case a commission under the great seal was issued in the common form adopted for the court of the steward; this was recalled, and the rule agreed to by a joint committee of both houses was that a steward for trials of peers upon impeach ments was unnecessary. But, as such an office was obviously con venient, the lords petitioned for a steward ; and a fresh corn mission was accordingly issued in an amended form, which re cited the petition, and omitted words implying that the appoint ment was necessary. This precedent has been treated as settling the practice of parliament with regard to impeachments.
Of the proceedings against peers founded upon indictment very few trials antecedent to the revolution took place in parlia ment. The preference given to the steward's court was largely due to the practice, founded upon the Southampton case, of sum moning only a few peers selected by the steward, a practice which made it easy for the king to secure a conviction. This arrange ment has been partially abrogated by the Treason Act of William III., which in cases of treason and misprision of treason requires that all peers of parliament shall be summoned 20 days at least before every such trial. The steward's court also differed in cer tain other particulars from the high court of parliament. For example, it was ruled by Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, as steward at the trial of Lord Delamere, that, in trials of peers which take place during the recess of parliament in the steward's court, the steward is the judge of the court, the court is held before him, his warrant convenes the prisoner to the bar, his summons con venes the peers for the trial, and he is to determine by his sole authority all questions of law that arise in the course of the trial, but that he is to give no vote upon the issue of guilty or not guilty; during a session of parliament, on the contrary, all the peers are both triers and judges, and the steward is only the chairman of the court and gives his vote together with the other lords. Lord Delamere was tried in 1685 in the steward's court ;
since then all trials of peers have taken place before the lords in parliament. The most recent trial was that of Earl Russell in 1901, when Lord Chancellor Halsbury was made lord high steward. The steward is addressed as "his grace," he has a rod of office, and the commission appointing him is dissolved according to custom by breaking this rod.
A court of claims sat and a steward was appointed for the coronation of Edward VII. ; and during the procession in West minster Abbey the duke of Marlborough, as steward, carried "St. Edward's crown" in front of the bearer of the Bible (the bishop of London), who immediately preceded the king; this function of the steward is of modern origin. The steward's ancient and particular services at coronations are practically obsolete; the full ceremonies, processions from Westminster Hall and banquet in which he figured prominently were abandoned on the accession of William IV.