Page:An Essay Concerning Parliaments.djvu/37

 and extreamly Burthenſom to the People; and particularly to grant the ſame King the Subſidy of Wool during his Life, and another Subſidy for certain Years, thereby too much Oppreſſing his People.

Now if he could have made Long Parliaments, he need not have made uſe of theſe mean Shifts. But he could make uſe of no other way, becauſe Parliaments, as I ſaid, were Freſh and Freſh, and Antiquity knew no other. And if any Man can make out of this Authentick Record, that it was any other wiſe, Than ſo many Parliaments ſo many elections, then I have done with Writing and Reading.

T laſt I am come to ſearch after the Head of Nile, and the true old Land-mark of the Engliſh Conſtitution. How Parliaments ſtood in the Britiſh times I am not ſo certain; but that there were Parliaments then, I am certain. I have it from the wiſe Gildas, that Vortigern and his fooliſh Thaynes ſent to the Saxons for help againſt the Picts Rh