Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/299

Rh ’s (if any thing in this world can be bigger than that of an able and an honeſt man) but it is a King, in his letter to the pope; it is in the clauſe rolls anno 3 I. m. 9 ſcedula, and is to be ſeen in ’s large book, p. 158. I will quote no more of it than is for my purpoſe; it is concerning the yearly tribute of a thouſand marks, which the popes from K. ’s time claimed, and there were ſeveral years due. The Pope’s nuncio ſollicits the matter, but the King excuſes himſelf that he had come to no reſolution in his Eaſter parliament, but by common advice he would give him an anſwer in his Michaelmas parliament next following. At preſent only mind the wording and way of expreſſing theſe two parliaments. Concerning the firſt he ſays, In parliamento quod circa octabas reſurrectionis Dominicæ celebrari in Anglia conſuevit: “In a parliament that uſed to be held in England about the octaves of Eaſter.” That word conſuevit amounts to cuſtom and uſage, and ſeems to expreſs a parliament de more. He ſays that the parliament was in o abis, and by occaſion of his ſickneſs after they had made ſeveral good laws, and redreſſed many grievances, but not all that lay before them) [sic] for the reaſon aforeſaid, that parliament was diſſolved, and the King could not treat with them about the pope’s petition of tribute. But he