Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/35

 PREFACE XXV Shire] or citizens. Clearly this is no Parliament. The summons was put in evidence in the Meinill case, but Counsel stated that this was only a summons to a council. " To the above need only be added, that whereas to the undoubted Parliaments of 1341 and I 343 there were, excluding Earls, 45 and 40 persons summoned respectively, to this intermediate council of i 342 the attendance of 96 persons was ordered. So little regard do the voluminous Lords' Reports attach to this gathering, that in the chapter " On the constituent Parts of the Legislative Assemblies [N.B. not merely the Parliaments] of England during the reign of Edward the Third " it is entirely ignored in its chronological place (vol. i, p. 316), the writers passing straight from the consideration of the Parliament of 15 to that of 17 Edward III, «»*«