_P._ I think your reason is good. For I cannot conceive, how the King, or any other but the inhabitants of the boroughs themselves, can take notice of the discretion or sufficiency of those they were to send to the Parliament. And for the antiquity of the burgess-towns, since it is not mentioned in any history or certain record now extant, it is free for any man to propound his conjecture. You know that this land was invaded by the Saxons at several times, and conquered by pieces in several wars; so that there were in England many Kings at once, and every of them had his Parliament. And therefore according as there were more, or fewer walled towns within each King’s dominion, his Parliament had the more or fewer burgesses. But when all these lesser kingdoms were joined into one, then to that one Parliament came burgesses from all the boroughs of England. And this perhaps may be the reason, why there be so many more such boroughs in the west, than in any other part of the kingdom; the west being more populous, and also more obnoxious to invaders, and for that cause having greater store of towns fortified. This I think may be the original of that privilege which some towns have, to send burgesses to the Parliament, and others have not. _L._ The conjecture is not improbable, and for want of greater certainty, may be allowed. But seeing it is commonly received, that for the making of a law, there ought to be had the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal; whom do you account in the Parliaments of the old Saxons for Lords temporal, and whom for Lords spiritual? For the book called _The mode of holding Parliaments_, agreeth punctually with the manner of holding them at this day, and was written, as Sir Edward Coke says, in the time of the Saxons, and before the Conquest. _P._ Mr. Selden, a greater antiquary than Sir Edward Coke, in the last edition of his book of _Titles of Honour_, says, that that book called _The mode of holding Parliaments_, was not written till about the time of Richard II, and seems to me to prove it. But howsoever that be, it is apparent by the Saxon laws set forth by Mr. Lambard, that there were always called to the Parliament certain great persons called Aldermen, _alias_ Earls. And so you have a House of Lords, and a House of Commons. Also you will find in the same place, that after the Saxons had received the faith of Christ, those bishops that were amongst them, were always at the great moots in which they made their laws. Thus you have a perfect English Parliament, saving that the name of Barons was not amongst them, as being a French title, which came in with the Conqueror. BEHEMOTH: THE HISTORY OF THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WARS OF ENGLAND, AND OF THE COUNSELS AND ARTIFICES BY WHICH THEY WERE CARRIED ON FROM THE