The first recorded impeachment in the United Kingdom was in 1376, in England. William Latimer was one of several officials who were targeted on allegations of corruption.

Latimer was a knight and soldier who had fought in the Hundred Years War, notably at the 1346 English victory at Crécy. He later served in Gascony and fought at the Battle of Auray, in 1364.

Latimer returned to England in 1368 and served as Steward of the Household for a time and then Chamberlain of the Household. The King of England at the time was Edward III.

The longer the Hundred Years War dragged on, the more territory France reclaimed. In April 1376 came the Good Parliament, so called because it had as a goal addressing supposed corruption in the judiciary. Parliament had not met for nearly three times by that time, and the Crown badly needed funds to continue the war. Latimer was thought to be stealing from the Treasury and was impeached on such charges.

The House of Commons functioned as a grand jury might today (and the way in which the U.S. House of Representatives does in U.S. impeachment cases). A majority of the Members of the House of Commons voted to impeach Latimer. The next step was a trial in the House of Lords; a simple majority was needed to "convict" (unlike in the U.S. Senate, in which a two-thirds vote is needed).

Latimer was convicted by the House of Lords and then imprisoned. (The same people who sought Latimer's impeachment sought charges against other officials, but Latimer was the only one impeached by the House of Commons.)

Latimer didn't spend a lot of time in prison. He received a pardon in October 1376. Restored to favor, he served as the executor of Edward's will, when the king died, in June 1377. Also in that year, he became Governor of Calais.

His slate was wiped clean when John of Gaunt summoned another Parliament. This one has come to be called the Bad Parliament because it declared the previously year's session, the Good Parliament, unconstitutional and had its laws voided.

English legal records contain dozens of other such impeachment proceedings during the next few centuries, although the use of impeachment as a means of targeting the dismissal of government officials occasionally gave way to a bill of attainder, which didn't require a trial but did require the assent of the monarch. One notable exception was Lord Stanley, who was impeached in 1459 for not sending his troops to fight in the Battle of Blore Heath, a Yorkist victory during the Wars of the Roses.

With the unification of England and Scotland with the ascension to the English throne of King James I, Parliament was again in session and again royal officials were being impeached:

• The famous Sir Francis Bacon (right) was one of those, accused of corruption while serving as Lord Chancellor; Bacon was convicted, fined, imprisoned, and barred from future office.
• Sir Giles Mompesson, who frequented the same circles as Buckingham, a favorite of King James I, was also the target of impeachment proceedings; he fled the country and was convicted in absentia.
• Francis Mitchell, a knight of the realm, was found guilty of corruption and extortion in connection with a monopoly on inn licensing. He was stripped of his knighthood and his honor and fled to France in order to avoid further punishment.

Relatively more recently, two well-known British officials who faced impeachment proceedings in the 18th and 19th Centuries were Warren Hastings, in 1788, and Henry Dundas, in 1806. Hastings, who was Governor-General of India in 1773–1786, faced allegations of misconduct in that role; he was acquitted by the House of Lords. The same fate befell Dundas, who, as Secretary of State for War, was charged with misusing public funds.

No national officials in the U.K. have been impeached since then.