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PARLIAMENTS.
241
CHAP. II.
Shewing how Parliaments ſtood in King Alfred’s
time, and afterwards.
I chuse to begin with this period of time of K. Alfred’s reign, becauſe we have clear law and hiſtory to ſhew how parliaments ſtood in his time, and what law was ordained concerning them for ever.
It is in the Mirror of Juſtice, which, as my lord Coke ſays in his preface to his tenth reports, was written in the Saxon times, and it appears by the book itſelf: but ſeveral things were added to it by a learned and wiſe lawyer Andrew Horne, who lived in the reign of Edward I. and Edward II. antiquity enough for a book, we deſire no more; for we are ſure that no commonwealths-man had the penning of it[1].
- ↑ The words of the Mirror are theſe, p. 10. Pur le eſtate del royalme fiſt le Roy Alfred aſſembler les comitees, & ordeigne pur uſage perpetuelle, que a deux foits per Pan ou pluis ſovent, pur meſtier, en tempts de peace ſe aſſembleront o Londres pur parliamenter ſur le guidement del people de Dieu, comment gents ſe garderent de peche, biverent en quiet, & recieverent droit per certaine uſages & ſaincts judgements. Pur cel eſtate
“For
