The Bill of Pain and Penalties ‘for an Act to deprive Caroline of the rights and title Queen Consort and to dissolve her marriage to George' was the King's solution to ending his unhappy marriage, to avoid going through the ecclesiastical courts. The Bill specifically claimed that ‘a most unbecoming and degrading intimacy' had occurred between Bartolomeo Pergami and Caroline. While the Bill began its passage through the two Houses of Parliament as normal, at its second reading in the House of Lords the proceedings took the form of a trial, to establish if the allegations against Caroline were true, with witnesses called and cross-examined.