AND this by the antient statutes of the realm[l], he is bound to do every year, or oftener, if need be. Not that he is, or ever was, obliged by these statutes to call a _new_ parliament every year; but only to permit a parliament to sit annually for the redress of grievances, and dispatch of business, _if need be_. These last words are so loose and vague, that such of our monarchs as were enclined to govern without parliaments, neglected the convoking them, sometimes for a very considerable period, under pretence that there was no need of them. But, to remedy this, by the statute 16 Car. II. c. 1. it is enacted, that the sitting and holding of parliaments shall not be intermitted above three years at the most. And by the statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. it is declared to be one of the rights of the people, that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving the laws, parliaments ought to be held _frequently_. And this indefinite _frequency_ is again reduced to a certainty by statute 6 W. & M. c. 2. which enacts, as the statute of Charles the second had done before, that a new parliament shall be called within three years[m] after the determination of the former. [Footnote l: 4 Edw. III. c. 14. and 36 Edw. III. c. 10.] [Footnote m: This is the same period, that is allowed in Sweden for intermitting their general diets, or parliamentary assemblies. Mod. Un. Hist. xxxiii. 15.] II. THE constituent parts of a parliament are the next objects of our enquiry. And these are, the king's majesty, sitting there in his royal political capacity, and the three estates of the realm; the lords spiritual, the lords temporal, (who sit, together with, the king, in one house) and the commons, who sit by themselves in another[n]. And the king and these three estates, together, form the great corporation or body politic of the kingdom, of which the king is said to be _caput, principium, et finis_. For upon their coming together the king meets them, either in person or by representation; without which there can be no beginning of a parliament[o]; and he also has alone the power of dissolving them. [Footnote n: 4 Inst. 1.] [Footnote o: 4 Inst. 6.]