The following is from a report written and released by the Judiciary Committee in 1974 in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis.

1. Plucknett, "Presidential Address" reproduced in 3 Transactions, Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, 145 (1952).
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2. See generally C Roberts, The Growth of Responsible Government in Stuart England (Cambridge 1966).
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3. Strafford was charged with treason, a term defined in 1352 by the Statute of Treasons, 25 Edw 3, stat. 5, c. 2 (1852). The particular charges against him presumably would have been within the compass of the general, or "salvo," clause of that statute, but did not fall within any of the enumerated acts of treason. Strafford rested his defense in part on that failure; his eloquence on the question of retrospective treasons ("Beware you do not awake these sleeping lions, by the searching out some neglected moth-eatedn records, they may one day tear you and your posterity in pieces: it was your ancestors' care to chain them up within the barricadoes of statutes; be not you ambitious to be more skilful and curious thatn your forefathers in the art of killing." Celebrated Trials 518 (Phila. 1837) may have dissuaded the Commons from bringing the trial to a vote in the House of Lords; instead they caused his execution by bill of attainder
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4. J. Rushworth, The Tryal of Thomas Earl of Stafford, in 8 Historical Collections 8 (1686).
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5. Rushworth, supra n 4, at 8-9. R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 30 ( 1973), states that the impeachment of Strafford"constitutes a great watershed in english constitutional history of which the Founders were aware."
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6. See generally A Simpson, A Treatise on Federal Impeachments 81-190 (Philadelphia, 1916), (Appendix of English Impeachment Trials); M.V. Clarke, "The Origin of Impeachment" in Oxford Essays in Medieval History 164 (Oxford, 1934). Reading and analyzing the early history of English impeachments is complicated by the pauelty and ambiguity of the records. The analysis that follows in this section has been drawn largely from the scholarship of others checked against the original records where posssible. The basis for what became the impeachment procedure apparently originated in 1341, when the King and Parliament alike accepted the principle that the King's ministers were to answer in Parliament for their misdeeds. C. Roberts, supra n. 2, at 7. Offenses against Magna Carta, for example, were failing for technicalities in the ordinary courts, and therefore Parlament provided that offenders against Magan Carta be declared in Parlament and judged by theri peers. Clarke, supra, at 173.
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7. Simpson, supra n. 6. at 86; Berger, supra n.5, at 61; Adams and Stevens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History 148 ( London 1927).
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8. For example, de la Pole was charged with purchasing property of great value from the King while using his position as Chancellor to have the lands appraised at less that they were worth, all in violation of his oath, in deceit of the King and in neglect of the need of the realm. Adams and Stevens, supra n. 7. at 148.
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9. Adams and Stevens, supra n.7, at 148-150.
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10. 4 Hatsell 67 (Shannon, Ireland, 1971, reprint of London 1796, 1818).
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11. 4 Hatsell, supra n.10 at 67, charges 2, 6 and 12.
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12. The Long Parliament (1640-48) alone impeached 98 persons. Roberts, supra n. 2, at 133.
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13. 2 Howell State Trials 1135,1136-37 (charges 1,2, and 6). See generally Simpson, supra n. 6, at 91-127; Berger, supra n. 5, at 67-73.
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14. Peter Pett, Commissioner of the Navy, was charged in 1668 with negligent preparation for an invasion y the Dutch, and negligent loss of a ship. The latter charge was predicated on alleged willful neglect in failing to insure that the ship was brought to mooring 6 Howell State Trials 865, 866-67 (charges 1, 5).
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15. Chief Justice Scroggs was charged in 1680, among other things, with browbeating witnesses and commenting on theri credibility, and with cursing and drinking to excess, thereby bringing "the highest scandal on the publick justice of the kingdom." 8 Howell State Trials 197, 200 (charges 7,8).
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16. Simpson, supra n.6, at 144.
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17. Simpson, supra n.6, at 144.
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18. See generally Marshall, The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (Oxford, 1965).
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19. Of the original resolutions proposed by Edmund Burke in 1786 and accepted by the House as articles of impeachment in 1787, both criminal and non-criminal offenses appear. The fourth article, for example, charging that Hastings had confiscated the landed income of the Begums of Oudh, was described by Pitt as that of all others that bore the strongest marks of criminality. Marshall, supra n. 19, at 53.
The third article, on the other hand, known as the Benares charge, claimed that circumstances imposed upon the Governor-General a duty to conduct himself "on the most distinguished priniciples of good faigh, equity, moderation, and mildness." Instead, continued the charge, Hastings provoked a revolt in Benares, resulting in "the arrest of the rajah, three revolutions in the country and great loss, wherby the said Hastings is guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor in the destruction of the country aforesaid." The common, supra n. 6, at 168-170; Marshall, supra n. 19, at xv, 46.
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20. See e.g., Berger, supra n.5, at 70-71.
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21. Berger, supra n.5, at 62.
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