Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/301

Rh

HERE are ſeveral ways of proving that there was a new election every year. They tell me, there are writs extant for new elections four-ſcore years ſucceſſively, where there are about ſix wanting. What if they had been all loſt, embezzled, or made away? What then, is our conſtitution loſt, when bundles of writs are loſt? No, I will go no further than this laſt letter, to ſhew that there is a great appearance, that while there were two parliaments in a year, the ſecond muſt be new called. Though I hate the word new, applied to parliament; for a parliament is a parliament, and our anceſtors would no more have dreamed of a ſtale or old parliament, than of an old moon cut out into Stars. I will cite the words of King ’s letter, dated the 19th of June, in the third of his reign; and when that is done, let the reader make his own Judgment upon them.

was in the interval betwixt his Eaſter and his Michaelmas parliament. “But before we could