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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, namely, in the Beginnings 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; 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 fame time, as Sir H. Spelman ſaid above, Conſulted of Peace and War, which cannot be managed without Ways and Means of raiſing Money, which is the Sinews of War, as Laws are of 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, le Roy Remercie ſes Loyals Sujects, that I knew not how to render the Word Rependere, any otherwiſe than I did, by the word Remercie.
I know that the Year 662. was below K. Arthur’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.
