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INTRODUCTION. Ch. III. Sect. II.
xxxvii

4. Original Acts.—These, from the 12th Year of Henry VII. to the present Time, with some Interruption, particularly in 14 & 15 Hen. VIII. and 21 Hen. VIII. are preserved in the Parliament Office. Some Petitions and Bills previous to 12 Hen. VII. are in the Tower of London, but in no regular Series. The Original Ats in the Parliament Office consist of the Bills as ingrossed after being brought into Parliament, and in the State in which, after such Ingrossment, they passed both Houses, and received the Royal Assent. Each Act is on a separate Roll numbered; and Reference is made to them from a Calendar kept of the Acts of each Session in the Parliament Office. These are the Materials from which the Clerk of the Parliaments makes up the Inrollments of Public Acts sent by him into Chancery, and preserved there; or certifies Acts into Chancery, when required so to do.[1]

As to the comparative Authority of the Original Acts and the Inrollments in Chancery, it is to be observed, that all the Original Acts are separate from each other; and that they are frequently interlined, defaced, erased, and in many Instances, with great Difficulty intelligible:[2] The Inrollment in Chancery is always fair and distinct; and the Acts are entered in a regular Series, on one Roll or subsequent Rolls, as Part of the Proceedings of a Parliament, the Time of the holding of which is stated at the Beginning of the Roll. In modern Practice, if any Doubt arises as to the Correctness of the Inrollment in Chancery,[3] Application is made to the Clerk of the Parliaments; and the original Act is thereupon produced, and compared with the Inrollment, and an Amendment, if requisite, is made in the Inrollment accordingly.

5. Rolls of Parliament.—These contain Entries of the several Transactions in Parliament; when complete they include the Adjournments, and all other common and daily Occurrences and Proceedings from the opening to the close of each Parliament, with the several Petitions or Bills, and the Answers given thereto, not only on public Matters, on which the Statute was afterwards framed, but also on private Concerns. In some few Instances the Statute as drawn up in Form is entered on the Parliament Roll: but in general the Petition and Answer only, are found entered; and in such Case the Entry, of itself, furnishes no certain Evidence, that the Petition and Answer were at any Time put into the Form of a Statute.[4]

Copies of Petitions in Parliament and Answers thereto, as early as 6 Edw. I. and in various Years of Edw. II. and Edw. III. are among Lord Hale’s Manuscripts in the Library of Lincoln’s Inn. Rolls containing Pleas, Petitions and Answers, and other Proceedings in Parliament, from 18 to 35 Edw. I. and one of Petitions in Parliament 7 Hen. V., are in the Chapter House at Westminster. A Book of Inrollment, called Vetus Codex, in which are entered Proceedings in Parliament, from 18 Edw. I. to 35 Edw. I. and in 14 Edw. II, is in the Tower of London.[5] In that Repository also are preserved Rolls containing Pleas and other Proceedings in Parliament, between 5 Edw. II. and 13 Edw. III; Rolls of Parliament of 9 Edw. II; 4, 5, and 6 Edw. III;[6] and 13 Edw. III; and from thence, to the End of the Reign of Edward IV, in a regular, and nearly uninterrupted, Series. After that Time the Rolls of Parliament are, for a certain Period, supplied by the Inrollments of Acts preserved in the Chapel of the Rolls,[7] and finally by the Journals of the Two Houses of Parliament.[8]
  1. ↑ It was one of the Functions of the Clerk of the Parliaments to receive, in the Upper House, the Petitions of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses: See Rot. Parl. 20 Edw. III. nu. 11. And with respect to the Appointment of the Clerk of the Parliaments, See Rot. Parl. 14 Ed. III. nu. 3: 15 Ed. III. nu. 1: 17 Ed. III. nu. 1: 18 Ed. III. nu. 4: 2 Hen. IV. nu. 21: 4 Hen. IV. nu. 10: 5 Hen. IV. nu. 40.
  2. ↑ See particularly the Act of Uniformity 14 Car. II. printed as cap. 4. of that Session: and being nu. 3. of the Bundle of Acts of that Year in the Parliament Office; and nu. 4. on Part I. of the Rolls containing the Inrollment of those Acts in Chancery. And see Appendix F. for other Instances.
  3. ↑ See Rot. Parl. 6 H. IV. nu. 56. for Amendment of Errors in a Subsidy Act, as entered “en les rolles de la Chauncellarie sr lengrossure del dit ꝑlement,” contrary to the actual Grant by the Commons.
  4. ↑ See Hale H. C. L. ch. 1, and 3 Keb. Rep. 588. That the Royal Assent given to a Petition did not of itself constitute a Statute; see Rot. Parl. 14 E. III. nu. 7: 15 E. III. nu. 42: 17 E. III. nu. 48: 18 E. III. nu. 33, 30: 25 E. III. nu. 12, 13: 37 E. III. nu. 39: 1 Ric. II. nu. 15: 2 Hen. IV. nu. 114: 7, 8 Hen. IV. nu. 60, 66: 13 Hen. IV. nu. 49: 23 Hen. VI. nu. 18, 19: See also ante pa. xxxi note 4; page xxxii note 5; and page xxxv note 5.
  5. ↑ The Contents of this Volume were printed in 1661, by W. Ryley, a Clerk in the Record Office in the Tower, with an Appendix of additional Matter, under the Title of Placita Parliamentaria. The Original Manuscript Volume is referred to in Rot. Pat. 6 Ric. II. P. 2. m. 26, as an Authentic Book of Inrollment, as follows: “D’ Exemplific̃ Tykford. ℞ Om̄ibꝫ ad quos, &c., salt̃m. Inspeximꝰ tenorem cujusdam. p͛cepti dñi E. quondam Regis Angl̵ fil̵ Regis Henr̃ ꝓgenitoris nr̃i, in quodam libro de ꝑliamentis ejusdem dñi E. anno regni sui vicesimo irrotulati in hec verba.” Then follows verbatim the Article ‘De Abbati de Mermonster,’ entered in fo. 36 of the Vetus Codex, and printed in page 102 of Ryley’s Placita Parliamentaria.
  6. ↑ At the Head of these two Rolls are the following Titles or Introductions, viz. At the Head of the Roll 9 Edw. II;

    “Memoranda de ꝑliamento dñi Edwardi Regis Angl̵ filii Edwardi quondam Regis Angl̵, sūmonito & tento apud Lincoln̄ in quindena Sc̃i Hillar̃, Anno regni dc̃i Reg̃ nono; facta ꝑ Wil̴l̴m de Ayremynne cl̵icum de Cancellar̃ p͛fati Reg̃, ꝑ eundem Regem ad hoc nōiatum & specialit͛ deputatum.”

    At the Head of the Roll of 4, 5, and 6 Edw. III.—“Recorda & Memorand̵ de hiis qui fiebant in ꝑliamento sum̄ apud Westm̄ die Lune ꝓx̃ post festum sc̃e Catherine anno Regni Regis Edwardi t͛cii a conquestu quarto, lib̴ata in Cancellar̃ ꝑ Henr̃ de Edenestowe cl̵icum ꝑliamenti.”

  7. ↑ See ante page xxxv: And see also Appendix E. for some Instances illustrative of the Contents of the Parliament Rolls, including the earliest Instances of the opening of Parliament by Authority of the King’s Commission. As a Specimen of the Contents of the several Rolls and Manuscripts, from 6 Edw. I. to 19 Hen. VII. the Six Volumes of “Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et Petitiones et Placita in Parliamento” printed by an Order of the House of Lords of 9th March 1767, may be consulted: But this Collection does not contain all the Rolls, Petitions, and Parliamentary Proceedings during that Period; and it is by no Means to be relied upon for correctness.
  8. ↑ The Journals of the House of Lords commence in 1 Hen. VIII: But of the Years 4, 5, 14 & 15, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, and 27 Hen. VIII, and of the first two Sessions in 1 Mary, the Journals have not been preserved. In the printed Editions therefore, the Journals for those Years are supplied by Copies of, and Extracts from, what are there termed the Parliament Rolls, being the Inrollments in Chancery mentioned above, and particularly described ante page xxxv. The Journals of the House of Commons commence in 1 Edw. VI.; But until the Beginning of the Reign of Elizabeth they contain merely short Notes of the several Readings of the respective Bills before the House, with a few occasional Entries only of other Proceedings. See further Appendix F.
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