Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/323

Rh him; ſo did our Folk. They gave him gifts, (it was not New-year’s-tide) aids, benevolences, call them what you will; and our people at the ſame time, as Sir ſaid above, conſulted of peace and war: which cannot be managed without ways and means of raiſing money, which is the ſinew of war, as laws are of the peace. The word rependere at laſt in the French kalends looks ſo like our French form of the royal aſſent given to a money-bill, de Roi remercie ſes loyal ſubjects, that I knew not how to render the word rependere any otherwiſe than I did, by the word remercie.

that the year 662 was below King ’s time; but it appears, that when the French government was utterly ſpoiled in the Merovingian family, as to the other points, ſtill they retained the old cuſtom of the kalends of May; ſo that it was of much greater ſtanding.