358 WRITS OF ASSISTANCE, 1558-1700 July These Parliament Pawns are now arranged in four bundles, of which the first, covering the period from 21 Henry VIII to 3 William III, 1 consists of flat sheets of parchment, one for each parliament ; in the three later bundles, 2 however, the parchment sheets are replaced by small rolls of two or three skins apiece, each roll containing the writs for a single parliament ; for the last two parliaments of which the Record Office has knowledge, there are two parchment books instead of the usual rolls, and though the form of the writ of assistance is given, there is no mention of the persons to whom it was sent. At exactly what point in the life of a parliament its Pawn was drawn up cannot be determined with any certainty, for there seems little doubt that the procedure in this connexion varied considerably. As was pointed out above, the Cromwellian Pawns were used as warrants for the preparation of the writs of summons and therefore must have been compiled before those writs were issued; moreover, three other Pawns are for parlia- ments that never actually met at all : no. 6 records the summon- ing of a parliament to meet on 18 September 1553 and Edward VI died in July, and nos. 26 and 27 are for those two parliaments of 1688 which were promised by James II in order to placate his subjects, but altered circumstances caused him to change his mind, and in consequence, though the writs were prepared, the elections were never held. 3 Naturally on this evidence one would assume that the Pawns were drawn up before the assembly of parliament, and this seems to have been the normal procedure after the Restoration ; 4 but that such was not always the case is shown by the Pawn for the parliament of 1604-11. Sir Thomas Fleming is there summoned in three capacities, as chief baron of the exchequer, as chief justice of the king's bench, and as solicitor- general. Of course, he held these offices in succession, but he is named as chief baron and chief justice several lines before he appears as solicitor-general, and, as there seems to be no likeli- hood that these two later titles could have been inserted after the completion of the list, it must follow that it was drawn up in a somewhat haphazard and unchronological order not earlier than 8 February 1610, the date of his summons to attend the peers as lord chief justice. 5 That this is not an isolated case can 1 This is the only bundle which has any serious gaps ; there are no records from the accession of Elizabeth until the parliament of 1586, and those for the parliaments of 1536, 1542, 1614, 1621, 1626, 1628, and 1640 (Long Parliament) are also missing. For the gaps in Dugdale's time, his marginal references should be compared with the last paragraph of his preface. 2 1 Anne to 14 George II ; 21 George II to 58 George III ; 1 George IV to 1880. 3 R, Lodge, Political History of England, viii. 283, 285, 292, 294. 4 Sir J. Pettus, The Constitution of the Parliaments in England (1680), p. 20. 6 Parliament Pawns, bundle i, no. 17. This list is interesting in several other ways :
