In each of these lands the peerage was originally a group of trusted advisors and favourites to the king, and depending on the country they were given several privileges that commoners did not have.

The privilege of peerage extends to all temporal peers and peeresses regardless of their position in relation to the House of Lords.

Such a council, having been in disuse for centuries, was revived in 1640, when Charles I summoned all of the peers of the realm using writs issued under the Great Seal.

Though such a council has not been summoned since then and was considered obsolete at the time, each peer is commonly considered a counsellor of the Sovereign, and, according to Sir William Blackstone in 1765, "it is usually looked upon to be the right of each particular peer of the realm, to demand an audience of the King, and to lay before him, with decency and respect, such matters as he shall judge of importance to the public weal.

"[5] The privilege of access is no longer exercised,[6] but it is possibly still retained by peers whether members of the House of Lords or not.

Eighteenth-century jurist Sir William Blackstone opined: The honour of peers is so highly tendered by the law, that it is much more penal to spread false reports of them, and certain other great officers of the realm, than of other men; scandal against them being called by the peculiar name of scandalum magnatum, and subject to peculiar punishments by divers ancient statutes.

"[10] Scandalum magnatum was punishable under the aforesaid statute as well as under further laws passed during the reign of Richard II.

During the reign of Henry VII, the Star Chamber, a court formerly reserved for trial of serious offences such as rioting, assumed jurisdiction over scandalum magnatum cases, as well as libel and slander.

In 1442, after an ecclesiastical court (which included King Henry VI of England, Henry Beaufort and John Kemp) found Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, guilty of witchcraft and banished her to the Isle of Man, a statute was enacted granting peeresses the right of trial by peers.

[19] For capital crimes the punishment was death; the last peer to be executed was Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, who was hanged for murder in 1760.

[14] From 1547, if a peer or peeress was convicted of a crime, except treason or murder, he or she could claim "privilege of peerage" to escape punishment if it was his or her first offence.

By the late 1930s, supporters of retaining the privilege were a minority in the Lords comprising mainly the holders of older peerages considering it a privilege of the House as a whole, whereas the majority favouring its abolition were holders of newly-granted peerages resenting the difficulties such a trial gave to individual accused peers.

The right to trial by peers was abolished when the Lords added an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act 1948, which the Commons accepted.

[24] The novel Clouds of Witness (1926) by Dorothy L. Sayers depicts the fictional trial in the House of Lords of a duke who is accused of murder.

The privilege of freedom from arrest applies to members of both Houses of Parliament,[1] because of the principle that they must, whenever possible, be available to give advice to the Sovereign.

Several other nations have copied this provision; the Constitution of the United States, for example, provides, "The Senators and Representatives ... shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses."

Theoretically, even when Parliament is not sitting, peers enjoy the privilege because they continue to serve the Sovereign as counsellors.

Though the tale is untrue—de Courcy was never made an earl and did not receive such a privilege[27][28]—several authorities on the peerage have seen fit to repeat it.

But when everything was prepared for the contest, and the champions had entered the lists, in presence of the Kings of England, France and Spain, the opponent of the earl, seized with a sudden panic, put spurs to his horse, and fled the arena; whereupon the victory was adjudged by acclamation to the champion of England.

The 1823 edition of Debrett's Peerage gives an entirely fictitious account of how Almericus de Courcy, 23rd Baron Kingsale, asserted the privilege:[30] Being very handsome in his person, and of a tall stature, his lordship one day attended King William's court, and being admitted into the presence-chamber, asserted the privilege of being covered before his majesty, by walking to and fro with his hat on his head.

The king replied, he remembered he had such a nobleman, and believed the privilege he asserted to be his right, and giving him his hand to kiss, his lordship paid his obeisance, and remained covered.Despite such inaccuracies, the tale has been frequently repeated.

Individual privileges that did exist have fallen into disuse—for example the Lord of the Manor of Worksop (which is not a peerage) was extended to the privilege and duty of attending the coronation of the British monarch until 1937, but the right was not exercised at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 as the manor was under corporate ownership at the time.