Page:An Essay Concerning Parliaments.djvu/34

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terve ſe ſubtraxerit per abſentiam temporis 40. dierum tanquam de vexatione populi ſui & gravibus Expenſis eorum non Curans, extune licitum omnibus & ſingulis eorem abſq.; domigerio Regis dedire as propria & unicuiq.; eorem in patriam ſuam remare. In ſhort, they ſay they have an Ancient Statute for it, that in caſe the King wilfully abſent himſelf and will not come to Parliament, As having no Care of vexing his People, nor Regard of their Great Expences, after Forty Days, they are Free to go Home, and the King has no Wrong done him.

Now what is the meaning of theſe Forty Days, but that they had waited a Juſt Seſſion? And how ſhould the Parliament-Mens Wages be otherwiſe adjuſted, when at the end of every Parliament in thoſe Times they were diſmiſſed, with deſiring them to ſue out their Writs for their Wages? And I leave it to the Antiquaries, becauſe I am not now able to Travel in that Point, to conſider how the ſeveral Proportions of Land which are allotted for the Knights and Burgeſſes in ſeveral Counties for their Wages, can be adjuſted, without a Certainty of the Length of their Seſſions.

But not a word of this is my preſent Buſineſs, which was to ſhew that Parliaments by the Conſtitution are not to be Stale; as I have ſeen one in

my