Like the council , the house was more than willing to do so , and the request was usually granted pro forma ( though the house would eventually require that the petitioner offer evidence that he or she was worth less than pounds10 per annum) .sx In most cases , the house simply moved the court in question to waive its customary fees and admit the petitioner to writ process and representation free of charge .sx Another common request of this kind was for the house to override claims of privilege which had protected defendants from legal action .sx Where the defendant was a member of the house , as often happened , the house normally informed the individual of the complaint and solicited his response .sx Almost invariably the member agreed to waive privilege and allow the matter to be heard .sx There was a sense in all of these cases that the Lords expected as much from fellow members .sx Where the member was not forthcoming , as occurred in one case , the house could override privilege on its own initiative .sx In this instance , Lord Deyncourt had left his 94-year-old father destitute by refusing to pay rents on properties divested to him in trust , forcing his father to sue in Chancery to collect the arrears .sx Lord Deyncourt's subsequent claim of privilege had stayed the suit and his father therefore petitioned the house for relief .sx The Lords summarily ordered the suit to proceed , notwithstanding the claim of privilege , unless the arrears of rent were paid before the beginning of the next legal term .sx Not all claims , however , involved members of Parliament .sx In one notable case , the house was asked to override a general protection issued by the Privy Council in favour of the Muscovy Company against suits initiated by its creditors .sx It did so without hesitation .sx The Lords were also asked on occasion to intercede directly in lower court proceedings .sx In one case they did so to protect a plaintiff against what appeared to be prejudicial actions taken by the staff of the court of Wards .sx In another , they were asked to prevail upon the court of Requests to expedite a case which had been inadvertently suspended by the departure of the then Master , Sir John Suckling , who had conducted the initial hearings .sx More often , however , the problems encountered by litigants were recurring ones which arose because of procedural or structural defects in the system .sx Frequently cited as problematic were the rules governing Bill of Review procedure in the court of Chancery .sx In the absence of any outside appellate recourse from the court , disgruntled litigants wishing to challenge a Chancery decree were forced to secure a rehearing in that court through a Bill of Review .sx However , the procedure was inherently prejudicial to the applicant .sx In order to be granted a review , the appellant had to demonstrate his 'good faith' by first fulfilling all of the conditions of the original decree ; that is , the judgment had to be obeyed in all points before a bill to reverse it would even be entertained .sx This imposed undue hardship in many cases , especially where , as often happened , the decree involved a major financial settlement between the parties .sx In addition , the complainant was forced to provide bonds and securities to guarantee the payment of costs and damages should the case go against him .sx Perhaps more importantly , the bill would only be granted if the petitioner could demonstrate some error or errors in the law in the body of the decree .sx Only those errors could be discussed , and then " without averment or further examination of matter of fact " .sx It was , as Sir Matthew Hale later described it , a " somewhat straight-laced " procedure .sx In special cases a bill might be allowed if new matter were discovered which could not have been made available for the original hearing , but this was much more the exception than the rule .sx In short , the procedure was not designed to accommodate a rehearing on the general merits of the cause or on the basis that the proceedings had been arbitrary or corrupt .sx And yet that was very often what was needed .sx In the case of Richard Wright , for example , the masters of the court had issued a decree awarding possession of a piece of property to Wright's adversaries , contrary to a report issued by referees and without a hearing by the Lord Chancellor .sx As he explained to the House of Lords ( " his last refuge " ) he was required to turn over the property in question before he could be admitted to a Bill of Review .sx He requested that they prevail on the Lord Keeper to waive that condition .sx The Lords agreed and recommended that the case be reheard on a Bill of Review , with the sole proviso that Wright put in sufficient security to defray any costs or damages that might be awarded .sx A similar situation had occurred in the case of a London merchant .sx George Morgan had actually obtained a decree in Chancery from Lord Chancellor Bacon awarding him pounds22,600 in settlement of some long-standing commercial accounts .sx Unfortunately , Bacon's decree was abruptly voided by Lord Keeper Williams , solely on the basis of a petition from the seven defendants .sx His decision - that Morgan should settle instead for pounds879 - was made out of term and without a proper hearing .sx Again , by the rules of the court once the decree had been enrolled Morgan would have had to accept the lesser amount and presumably discharge the defendants of their obligation before he could be admitted to a Bill of Review .sx That was clearly unreasonable and the Lords ordered instead that the case be reheard in its entirety ( this time by Lord Keeper Coventry ) and that neither party was to " take any benefit of any former decree or order .sx " The Lord Keeper was additionally requested to proceed with " all convenient expedition " .sx Perhaps not surprisingly , the Lords were also called upon to intercede in a variety of jurisdictional disputes , typically in the context of a complaint made by a petitioner that his or her legitimate proceedings in one court had been stayed by an injunction issued out of another - the usual result of collateral actions frequently undertaken by defendants .sx The petitioner would then request that the house overrule the injunction or , alternatively , make a clear determination on where the suit ought best to be tried .sx Ralph Starkey , for example , petitioned the house in 1626 asking for a determination on the proper jurisdiction for a case involving a disputed will and property in Cheshire .sx Starkey had initiated proceedings in Chancery , but the defendant ( his younger brother ) had then secured a reference to the judges to determine whether the Chancery proceedings did not in fact infringe on the jurisdiction of the County Palatine of Chester .sx The judges ruled that they did and the Chancery proceedings were stayed .sx In reviewing the case the Lords determined that the suit ought to proceed in Chancery , notwithstanding the Chester jurisdiction .sx Their decision was based on the fact that the northern jurisdiction would not accept the depositions of witnesses taken in the earlier Chancery proceedings and , since most of Ralph Starkey's witnesses were now dead , his case would have been wholly and unfairly compromised .sx Equitable considerations , rather than a strict ruling on jurisdiction , carried the day .sx In another case in 1628 Sir Humphrey Ferrers petitioned the house protesting an injunction issued out of the court of Wards which had stayed proceedings in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury touching the estate of his father-in-law , Sir John Packington .sx The injunction had ostensibly been issued to protect the interests of Sir John's grandson , a ward of the Crown , but had actually been granted on a minor technicality at the behest of his widow , to prevent the ecclesiastical court from awarding administration of the estate to Ferrers .sx The Lords reviewed the case in full and determined that the Ward's injunction amounted to unwarranted and unnecessary interference .sx They not only ordered that the proceedings should continue in the Prerogative Court ( taking the concerns of the court of Wards into account ) , but , in a rather unusual departure , went on to issue their own recommendations as to how the case should actually be settled .sx As a rule , injunctions were seen as a nuisance and an impediment to judicial celerity and the courts which had granted them were expected to offer clear and reasonable justification for their issue or withdraw them .sx Most of these actions were designed to facilitate proceedings elsewhere and did not constitute a formal appeal , at least in a conventional sense .sx Clearly , however , the Lords were required to consider the substance of many of these cases in order to make an informed decision on how best to resolve them elsewhere .sx And they could ( and did ) choose in a number of instances simply to void all prior proceedings and former decrees in a case in favour of an entirely new trial of the central matters in dispute .sx That was not the same as reversing the substance of an earlier decree in favour of one party over another , but for the aggrieved plaintiff , it amounted to a successful appeal all the same .sx The house was , of course , willing and able to hear appeals fully itself .sx In the case of complaints from the courts of common law it generally did so , according to statutory authority , by way of writ of error .sx Its appellate jurisdiction over courts of equity was perhaps less clearly defined , but evolved rapidly ( largely out of necessity ) through the Parliaments of the 1620s .sx As suggested above , the absence of appellate recourse from the courts of equity , and most particularly from the court of Chancery , was one of the central complaints against the early modern legal system .sx But it was also a difficult problem to resolve .sx On the face of it the limitation made sense .sx In theory the provision of equitable remedy was the responsibility of the king , who acted through 'intermediaries' appointed from his council .sx As James I reminded his Star Chamber audience in 1616 , the Lord Keeper was nothing so much as " the dispenser of the king's conscience " , and the principle undoubtedly applied relative to the responsibilities of the Lord Privy Seal in the court of Requests .sx To suggest that an appeal was possible , in any conventional sense , from either court , was to imply that royal justice was fallible or that it could be ( or ought to be ) subject to independent review .sx Contemporary political theory would not easily accommodate that sort of assertion .sx However , the theory itself bore little relation to practical reality .sx None of these courts was any longer an adjunct assembly of the king's council .sx They were completely independent and thoroughly institutionalized courts with highly sophisticated procedures and professional staffs and , in truth , they operated far more frequently with reference to principles of common law than to any 'divinely ordained' system of natural law .sx Moreover , as suggested above , the powers exercised by these courts had steadily expanded during the early seventeenth century and their actions - particularly in real property disputes - could have a considerable and often decisive impact .sx In view of the increasing delegation of real judicial authority within the courts themselves ( notably to the masters in both Chancery and Requests ) and the increasing participation of the common law judges in equity proceedings , the immunity of those decisions from subsequent review or reversal must have seemed both anachronistic and unfair .sx As it was , once a Chancery decree had been enrolled the disgruntled litigant had few options .sx He or she could proceed by Bill of Review , with all of the limitations which that involved , or he could petition the king , requesting an entirely new hearing by a special commission of review appointed under the Great Seal .sx The latter procedure was inevitably slow and expensive and remained singularly unpopular .sx The only other avenue of redress was to proceed by private bill and attempt to reverse the decree by act of Parliament .sx Again , this method involved great cost and delay , requiring as it did extensive hearings by both houses .sx It was , however , tried repeatedly in the 1620s , notably without success .sx Of the seven bills presented to reverse decrees in the court of Chancery , five never made it past a first reading in the House of Commons .sx