_P._ I think so. For there is no King in the world, being of ripe years and sound mind, that made any law otherwise. For it concerns them in their own interest to make such laws as the people can endure, and may keep them without impatience, and live in strength and courage to defend their King and country, against their potent neighbours. But how was it discerned, and by whom was it determined, who were those wisest and discreetest men? It is a hard matter to know who is wisest in our times. We know well enough who chooseth a knight of the shire, and what towns are to send burgesses to the Parliament. Therefore if it were determined also in those days, who those wise men should be, then I confess that the Parliaments of the old Saxons, and the Parliaments of England since, are the same thing, and Sir Edward Coke is in the right. Tell me therefore, if you can, when those towns, which now send burgesses to the Parliament, began to do so, and upon what cause one town had this privilege, and another town, though much more populous, had not. _L._ At what time began this custom I cannot tell; but I am sure it is more ancient than the city of Salisbury. Because there come two burgesses to Parliament for a place near to it, called Old Sarum, which, as I rid in sight of it, if I should tell a stranger that knew not what the word burgess meant, he would think it were a couple of rabbits; the place looketh so like a long cony-borough. And yet a good argument may be drawn from thence, that the townsmen of every town were the electors of their own burgesses, and judges of their discretion; and that the law, whether they be discreet or not, will suppose them to be discreet, till the contrary be apparent. Therefore where it is said, that the King called together the more discreet men of his realm; it must be understood of such elections as are now in use. By which it is manifest, that those great and general moots assembled by the old Saxon Kings, were of the same nature with the Parliaments assembled since the Conquest.