Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/322

276 neither to act nor order any thing, but to eat and drink unconſcionably, and to live at home, and upon the kalends of May to preſide in an aſſembly of the whole nation, and there to be addreſſed, to receive their allegiances, and aids or benevolences, and to remercy them, and ſo to retire to the ſame life again till another May came.”

French kalends of May, is ſo much a picture of our’s, that I know not which is the copy, nor which the original. Their’s was an aſſembly of the whole nation, ſo was our’s: annual and anniverſary, ſo was our’s. It was ''tota gens kal. Maii. in France: our Folkmote looks extremely like it in thoſe two ſtrokes; Statutum eſt enim quod ibi debent populi omnes, & gentes univerſæ ſingulis annis, ſemel in anno ſcilicet convenire, ſcilicet in capite kal. Maii''. For it was appointed by ſtatute, that all the people and counties, univerſal, ſhould meet together at the Folkmote each year, namely, once in the year, to wit, in the beginning of the kalends of May. The King uſed to have fine ſpeeches made to him in France; ſo had we. They ſwore allegiance, to him;