The impeachment, therefore, of Danby was on that account the sooner revived; and it was maintained by the commons, that notwithstanding the intervening dissolution, every part of that proceeding stood in the same condition in which it had been left by the last parliament; a pretension which, though unusual, seems tacitly to have been yielded them.

The king had beforehand had the precaution to grant a pardon to Danby; and, in order to screen the chancellor from all attacks by the commons, he had taken the great seal into his own hands, and had himself affixed it to the parchment.

He told the parliament, that, as Danby had acted in every thing by his orders, he was in no respect criminal; that his pardon, however, he would insist upon; and if it should be found anywise defective in form, he would renew it again and again, till it should be rendered entirely complete; but that he was resolved to deprive him of all employments, and to remove him from court.
The commons were nowise satisfied with this concession They pretended, that no pardon of the crown could be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, by the commons.

The prerogative of mercy had hitherto been understood to be altogether unlimited in the king; and this pretension of the commons, it must be confessed, was entirely new.

It was, however, not unsuitable to the genius of a monarchy strictly limited, where the king's ministers are supposed to be forever accountable to national assemblies, even for such abuses of power as they may commit by orders from their master.
The present emergence, while the nation was so highly inflamed, was the proper time for pushing such popular claims; and the commons failed not to avail themselves of this advantage.