Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/314

268 And for this I will go no further than to the third branch of the uſual and accuſtomed coronation-oath, taken by the former Kings of England, and taken twice by II.

“ you grant that the juſt laws and cuſtoms, which are of the Folks chuſing, ſhall be kept, and do you promiſe that they ſhall be protected, and, to the honour of, receive affirmance by you, to the utmoſt of your power? The King ſhall anſwer, I grant and promiſe.”

I would fain know how a Folkmote can be otherwiſe expreſſed in Latin than by the word Vulgus, which is a collective word: or how the Vulgus or Folk could chuſe laws any otherwiſe than in a Folkmote?

not enter into the ſtiff diſpute which exerciſed K. I. and his parliaments for a long time, whether the word was præter tenſe, or future, and whether the word was beſt rendered in the French tranſlations, the laws which the Folk